


the summers we saw

by brookethenerd



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23519518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookethenerd/pseuds/brookethenerd
Summary: A year ago, the reader almost died in Starcourt mall, and left Hawkins, and Steve Harrington, behind. But now Hopper is alive, and they end up back in Hawkins (aka a rescue mission, old feelings, and plenty of angst)Post-Season 3
Relationships: Robin Buckley/Original Female Character(s), Steve Harrington/Reader, Steve Harrington/You
Comments: 3
Kudos: 61





	1. part 1

**Author's Note:**

> st4 is inevitably postponed due to the current state of the world so that means im making the canon in their absence sorry I dont make the rules (just kidding i do) so here we go! another chapter fic that will go to a length i dont know yet!

**1985**

When people talk about fight or flight, they don’t talk about the way it feels, the way your body reels itself in and readies for emergency, the way instinct and adrenaline meld to create someone you may have never seen before.

Mothers lift cars off babies and lost hikers scream so loud even bears back down and back off. Fear takes a person and mashes them into something new, something different, something old and scrambling for preparation.

When Max and Mike bolted across the Starcourt floor for El and Billy - rendered motionless by the Mind Flayer’s approach - you didn’t think, didn’t hesitate, didn’t so much as _breathe_. The fear snapped like a rubber band and fell beneath the weight of a cool wave of calm. The world tunneled and the options were slashed in half again and again until only two remained.

An odd, calming peace washed over you, an understanding: you would die, or you wouldn’t. There was nothing you could do about that. But Max and Mike, you could get them out of the way and drag their danger onto your face like a bullseye. Take the hit so they didn’t have to.

You ran after them, lunging and throwing out your arms, yanking them back and shoving them aside, not caring for gentleness, only goal to get them _away_. They slammed into the linoleum on either side of you, immediately grabbed and pulled to safety by Nancy on one side and Steve on the other.

Your momentum sent you rocking forward, foot catching on a mannequin arm, and you fell to the floor, knees smacking hard, the impact jolting up your spine. A roar shook your eardrums and you scrambled to your feet, slipping in goo and managing only to stay standing, not moving backward, not moving _away_ from the massive shadow lurking above you.

Someone screamed your name just as one of the dark, dripping tentacles of the Mind Flayer swiped into your side, slicing your skin apart like knives through paper, the pain immediate and blinding. The screams came again, but this time, there were more, so many more, like wolves howling mournfully at the moon. You think your voice might have been rolled into them, too.

You didn’t feel the floor when you hit it, didn’t feel anything but the fire burning you from the inside out and ripping you into tiny, little pieces. Words splintered before they reached your tongue and your thoughts burned along with your belly, the taste of mental thick on your tongue.

Right before the world fell away, a dark pair of eyes caught yours - a boy, one you know, one who’s name is too hard to reach over the fire, one that soothes your panic, if not your body - and a familiar and breaking voice said, “Please, _please_ , don’t go.”

You wanted to say _I’m sorry,_ but the darkness swallowed you whole before you got a chance.

* * *

When you woke in the hospital three days later you thought you were dead. According to Robin, who gave you the full story after your family’s sugarcoated one, you had died, for a full minute on the OR table.

The Mind Flayer did, in fact, rip you to pieces. Your stomach, at least. After hours and hours of surgery, and one flatline, you were closed back up and pumped full of pain meds and placed in a hospital bed.

When you got the letter about the acceptance - UCLA, twenty two hundred miles away - your first instinct was to toss it. It had been a random application, one of many sent out last year, one you never intended to actually go to. What the hell were you going to do in California when everyone you knew, everyone you loved, was here?

Then the summer happened. Then you almost died; or, technically, did die. Then the world changed, again, just as it had the year before, and the year before that, and you realized you might not survive it if it flipped again.

Three years. Three hospital stays for injuries sustained fighting monsters. Three explanations you could never give your parents.

It was a breaking point, not just for you, but for your family. The moment they heard about California, all prior reservations disappeared, and they hopped on board before you’d even decided on the car.

Everyone you loved was in Hawkins. But the place had become a ghost town, seemingly overnight, and you were so tired of being haunted, so tired of losing and grieving and wondering.

So, you went. You packed up your bags, and you left without saying goodbye to anyone but Robin and Nancy, and you started a new life in a place that had never heard of the Upside Down, where the monsters were crappy drivers and high rent prices.

You left Hawkins behind. But two thousand miles wasn’t enough to shake the ghosts clinging to your back.

* * *

**1986**

El hasn’t been able to reach the void since Starcourt mall. It’s as if part of her is missing, a humming she’d grown accustomed to going silent. She can’t get used to the quiet. She _hates_ the quiet.

Just because she can’t reach the void, though, doesn’t mean the void can’t reach her.

It starts as blurry images or sounds or flashes of light, a turning in her stomach or a chill up her spine.

On the first day of summer, the door cracks wide open, and El falls back into the darkness she’s come to miss.

_A blanket of white, snow encasing the world in ice. Thin, black trees, and dark rocks jutting through the snow. Soldiers in dark green uniforms and snarling dogs, thick hats and wool gloves and plumes of white breath. Guns and patrols and axes and picks, prisoners and a thin railroad._

_A man straightens, lifts his head, hair buzzed and face gaunt._

_Jim Hopper lowers his pick and looks to the pale grey sky. He is hardened and hurt and weary, but the fire in his eyes is just as fierce and bright as it was the day she met him._

El’s eyes snap open and she sits up, swiping the blood from her nose and looking down at the red staining her knuckles. Tears blur the sight, dripping off her cheeks and mixing with her bloody knuckles.

Hopper is alive.

* * *

The kick catches you in the leg, buckling your knee, and you fall back onto the mat, huffing when you hit it. You tug off your gloves, spitting out the mouth guard beside you.

“Annnnnnd I win! That’s 2-3, dude,” your roommate, Reagan, says, holding out a gloved hand to help you up. You take another breath and grab her hand, letting her pull you up and flashing her a grin.

“You kick harder than a fucking donkey.”

Reagan grins. 

“It’s the thick thighs. Curvy girls for the win.”

“Curvy girls for the _concussion_. Best 4 out of 5?”

“What about Gene’s glass?” She asks, pulling her gloves off and walking over to her duffel at the edge of the mat, kneeling to tuck them inside and pulling out her water bottle. She looks up at you, swiping the dark bangs out of her eyes, and grins mischievously, waggling her brows. “Or…we could always….”

Sharing half your classes with Reagan, and spending half your time together at the gym, made for fast friends, and brought out both of your easy impressionability when it comes it skipping class.

“I’d be down for that.”

“Food instead?”

“Burritos?”

You grin. “You read my mind.”

* * *

Though everyone has kept in touch, it’s the first time everyone has been in the same room in…Steve can’t remember how long. The Byers, along with El, and Nancy, Jonathan, Max, the boys, and Robin, all stuffed into the Wheeler’s basement.

Not everyone is here, though. _You’re_ not here. But Steve stopped looking for you a year ago, when you ditched Hawkins - ditched _him_ , ditched everything - and fled to Los Angeles.

That’s what he tells himself; that he stopped looking. Sometimes, still, he loses his breath when he sees hair like yours or the same jacket on someone else. You’re his very own personal ghost, rattling behind him like a dragging bumper.

For a long time, you weren’t a ghost, but something like a planet, and he was one too, both on orbits that cross every so often but push away from each other. You come together to save the world and sparks fly and you get right up to the edge, but never fall over.

The closest you got was beneath Starcourt mall. But when the mall burned, and you almost died, your paths severed again.

“Okay, so, what do we know?” Nancy asks, standing in front of a chalkboard Mike dragged out of one of the closets. Two columns: known and unknown.

“We know Hopper is alive,” Lucas says.

“Yeah, no shit,” Max snaps. Lucas shrugs.

“Hey, it’s still a _fact_.”

“And you’re still an _idiot_.”

“And you’re both sixteen,” Dustin says, “maybe try to act it.”

“Alright, Mr. Never Ending Story.”

“It’s been a year, you _assholes_ -”

“ _Moving on_!” Nancy says. She writes ‘hopper = alive’ on the board and turns back around. “What else?”

“He’s in Russia,” Max supplies. Nancy nods, writing it down.

“Yeah, but _where_ in Russia?” Asks Mike. “El, did you see anything in the vision?”

El’s brows furrow as she thinks. “I saw…a sign.”

“Like, a road sign?”

She shakes her head, and says, “Kam…kamchatka.”

“Kamchatka?” Dustin asks. “What the hell is that supposed to be?”

“It’s not a _thing_ , it’s a _place_ ,” Jonathan says, slapping a map of Russia on the card table and pointing at a small peninsula on the eastern coast. The Kamchatka Peninsula.

“Oh, so an entire island. Great. That’s easy to figure out.” Mike crosses his arms with a huff.

“A _peninsula_ , dumbass, not an _island_ ,” Max says.

“Saying we could find it, and even get to Russia in the first place, El said there were at least a hundred guards, and they all have dogs and weapons,” Nancy says. “It’s suicide.”

“El isn’t at full strength, and even between us, we don’t have the weapons or the training. We’d be slaughtered,” says Mike.

Robin straightens.

“What if we could get the training?”

Something churns in Steve’s got, a brewing hesitation that his mind hasn’t pieced together yet. Wherever Robin is going, something inside him wants her to _stop_.

“We’d need someone who knows what we’re dealing with, and has fought these people before,” Joyce says.

“We need Hopper,” Will says.

“Or, someone trained by Hopper,” Robin says, a smile tugging on her lips. “Someone who fought the Russians and the Demogorgon’s. Who knows _exactly_ what we’re dealing with.”

“Robin,” Steve warns. Fear and hope, hope, the thing that constantly tugs at his loose threads, slowly unraveling him, unfurl in his chest.

The thing about not having a concrete ending, is there’s nothing to point at, nothing to force in his face to reassure himself that it’s over, over forever, never happening again. When the book doesn’t close, it’s hard not to want more chapters.

“But….Y/N is in California,” Max says.

“Their semester ends in three days.” Robin ignores Steve’s attempts to catch her eye and glare. “It’s worth a shot.”

“Robin, no,” Steve says. “Y/N nearly died last year. They left for a reason. You really think they’re just gonna come back here?”

“I do,” Robin says.

“Call them,” Joyce says.

* * *

You drop onto the couch across from Reagan, plopping your drink onto the coffee table. The movement makes the old injury in your stomach protest, and though you try to hide the wince, Reagan sets her wrapped burrito down on her lap and frowns.

“Was I too rough?” She asks. You give her a withering look.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” you say. “The scars bug me sometimes.”

The slashes made by the Mind Flayer are healed after a year, but they still ache sometimes, when it rains or when you sit weird or get hit right in the side. The training actually helped, after you were cleared to work out, helping to coax the broken and unused muscles back to life. You’re not as good as you used to be, before, but you’re nearly there.

“Ah, _the scars_.” Reagan arches her brows. “Are you ever going to tell me how you really got those things?” You open your mouth to speak, but Reagan interrupts you, “and you’ve already tried shark attack, dog bite, and, once, when you were drunk, rabid beaver.”

“Had a nightmare about those once. It could happen,” you say. Reagan rolls her eyes and picks up her food, taking a bite.

“Bullshit,” she says after swallowing. “But whatever. You’ll tell me eventually.”

The phone rings on the wall and you push to your feet, slowly, grabbing it and lifting it to your ear.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” Robin says. “We need to talk.”

Your stomach turns. Robin doesn’t usually call at this time. She works on Tuesday’s, and with the town of Hawkins out for summer, the video store will be more crowded than usually.

It could be nothing. Or it could be _something_.

You flash Reagan an apologetic smile, and her brows furrow for a moment before she understands, getting to her feet and heading for her bedroom. You’re grateful for the privacy, undeserved considering how many secrets you still harbor.

“I’m here.”

“I’m sorry to call you like this,” she says. “It’s just…something happened.”

You take a long breath, closing your eyes for a moment before replying.

“What’s going on?”

“Hopper is alive,” she says, and relays the vision El had, tells you about the Byers and El coming back to Hawkins and their rough plan to break him out, the plan that requires you and your help.

Once upon a time, when you were a kid in high school, Hopper took you under his wing and taught you everything he knew. How to fight, how to shoot - guns, bows, etc - how to throw knives and protect yourself. It kept your busy mind quiet and gave him a protege to focus on.

“Robin, I can’t.” Your stomach rolls, heat creeping up your cheeks, the scars on your belly itching. “I can’t come back there. I can’t…”

“I wouldn’t ask if we didn’t need you,” she says. “But we do. We need you. Hopper needs you.”

You let out a sigh. You made a promise a long time ago that you’d always come back to fight the Upside Down if it ever sprung a leak again.

And it has, in a way. Hopper is alive, and the Russians are still doing whatever it is they’re doing with him, and as much as you wish you could pretend it isn’t real, pretend the world is nice and easy and sunny, you know that isn’t the truth, and you won’t be able to live with yourself if you don’t do something.

“Fine,” you say. You look to Reagan’s closed door. “But I’m bringing help. You say you need, training, she’s just as good as I am. That’s the deal.”

“Thank you,” Robin says. She pauses, and says, “I’m excited to see you, even if it’s under shitty circumstances.”

You smile.

“I’ve missed you too, Buckley. I’ll be on a plane this weekend. You’re picking me up.”

Robin laughs, and assures you she’ll be there to taxi you before hanging up.

“Reagan!” You call. Reagan opens her door and pokes her head out, dark brows arching over green eyes. “You interested in a trip?”

She grins.

“Vacation?”

“Not quite.”

She shrugs, and says, “Whatever. I’m in.”


	2. part 2

**1985**

The Russian soldiers tossed Steve through the door and onto the concrete like he was a rag doll, like he weighed nothing at all, and he landed hard against the floor, unconscious and bloody. One eye swollen near shut, his bottom lip split open near the corner, breath coming out in wheezes.

Robin moved first, scrambling across the floor toward him, the door buzzing locked across the small room as the soldiers left.

You dropped to your knees beside Robin and she shifted out of the way, letting you scoot closer and pull Steve into your lap, half cradling him, as if your arms around him might protect him from further blows. His breathing is slow, ragged, but still there, still strong.

“Steve. Wake up.” You cup his cheeks in your free hand, careful of the cuts and slowly blooming bruises, tears welling in your eyes.

When they dragged him away, left you and Robin with bound ankles to scream and bang on the doors and wait, your fear wrapped a noose around your neck, a knot only loosened by Steve’s presence in your arms. The last embers of fear lingered still, sparking every few seconds and filling your veins with icy panic.

“Steve, wake up,” you pleaded softly, a tear slipping down your cheek and off your chin, landing on Steve’s blood-smeared forehead. “Wake up, you stupid, brave idiot, or I’ll kill you myself.”

“ _Mhmmm_ ,” Steve murmured, lips cracking apart, eyelids peeling open. A groan pushed past his lips, involuntary, and his features twisted with pain. “I’d prefer ‘f you didn’t.”

“Steve? Holy shit, Steve,” Robin exclaimed, moving in closer, tears glimmering in her own eyes. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“And me.”

He winced again, gaze skating around the room before returning to yours. He shifted, managing to curl himself deeper into your arms, and if it weren’t so pathetic, if you weren’t still so worried, you’d have given him shit about it.

“Are you okay?” Robin asked.

“If you say yes, I’ll smack you,” you said. Steve crinkled his nose, shifting further up, still leaned heavily against you.

“My ears are ringing, and I can’t really breathe, and my eye feels like it’s going to pop out of my skull but…” He lifted his gaze to yours, only now seeming to register _where_ he was - as in, _who_ he was pressed against, “You know, apart from that…pretty good.”

“Well, they’re bringing you a doctor,” Robin said, the hope bleeding through her words and twisting your insides.

“I don’t think it’s that kind of doctor,” you said. Steve glanced around the room again.

“This his place of work? Love the vibe,” Steve slurred. You rolled your eyes. Robin pushed to her feet, starting a slow pace in front of you, gaze trailing around the room and the metal tables, the rusting chairs.

“We have to find a way out of here,” she said, moving to the door and fiddling with the lock. It was a pointless tirade, you knew, but you weren’t going to be the one to yank Robin’s hope away. If she still believed you could just pop open the door and walk out, you weren’t going to take that from her.

Once pandora’s box is open, and hope escapes, you’re still left with a box. An empty, dark box.

With Robin distracted by meaningless escape searching, you turned your focus to the boy dipping in and out of consciousness in your lap. He had a concussion, a bad one; add it to the ever-growing list of injuries sustained by the pair of you. Like rolling dice and deciding who gets to bleed that time. Only, the universe held the die, and you couldn’t see the numbers until they’d been rolled.

“Steve,” you said, the stern tone clearing his foggy gaze. “I’m not gonna ask if you’re okay, because clearly…” You jerked a chin at his ruined face. “But I need to know if you’re okay enough.”

It was like a game, after all these years. Asking if the other was hurt died the moment you both took hits, and the question shifted from _are you okay_ to _are you okay enough to go on._

Steve nodded curtly, trying to push himself up and slipping, grabbing onto you to steady himself. Your gaze snapped to his, the world tunneling until only his face - bruised, bloody, but still, somehow beautiful - remained, his dark eyes bright against the red.

“I’m okay enough,” he said softly.

“We’re gonna get out of here. Robin will find an exit,” you said, assuring him of the fact you yourself knew was a lie. If you were getting out, it was by Dustin and Erica’s hand, not anyone else, certainly not your own.

“Our own personal sleuth,” Steve said.

“You won’t be bitching when I get this door open,” Robin called back from where she knelt in front of the door with a twisted bobby pin. A pointless tirade, but one you still let her continue.

“You can say _I told you_ so when we’re topside,” Steve slurred. Robin snorted a laugh, continuing with her attempts, and you dropped your gaze back to Steve.

Something fiercely protective, twisting and aching and sharp, unfurled inside you, the urge to duck your chin and wrap your arms tighter around Steve nearly overwhelming. He was bloody enough, broken enough, and even if he claimed to be alright, you’d known him long enough to read between the lines. He was tired, and he was hurt, and at least until he shook off the initial hits, he was useless. Useless and hurting, with nothing you could do about either.

He caught your gaze, a hand coming up to settle against your neck, thumb resting against your jaw. The warm, red liquid staining his fingers inevitably painted your skin, but you didn’t complain, didn’t look away, didn’t pull away.

“Are you okay?” He asked. His gaze flitted around your face and down your frame, searching for injuries.

Around and around the path you went, always ending back in the same spot, always ending up here, checking for wounds and praying for another minute and fighting, always fighting. It was a train you didn’t decide to climb onto, one that came around each year like clockwork and took you for a ride before spitting you out on the other side broken, leaving months to build back up before the curtains fell again.

Looking at Steve, at Robin, at your red-stained skin, you realized with a start that you wanted nothing more than to get off this ride. It was selfish, and silly, and impossible, but right then, you’d have given anything to zap you and Steve and Robin somewhere else, somewhere better. Somewhere teenagers should be. Not beneath a mall, bloody and bound, questioned and imprisoned.

This was not the way your life was supposed to be. You’d known that for a long time, since Will Byers disappeared. But only now did you wonder if you’d been staring at the exit the whole time, and the only reason you hadn’t jumped back to land was fear, or a weird sense of comfort in the routine.

You forced a thin smile onto your lips.

“Okay enough,” you said.

His lips parted, something frantic and fearful flickering in his eyes.

“If we don’t….if something happens, I need you to know-”

“Shut your mouth, Harrington,” you snapped. “Don’t forget your promise.”

No goodbyes; never goodbyes. Goodbyes are signing your own fate and tightening a noose around your own neck. After so much loss, there was little you hated more than saying goodbye.

And yet, for some reason, you felt like you needed to say one; you felt like Steve needed to. It was the fear, the dread, that stopped you. It was the idea that speaking the words would make them real that kept your mouth shut.

The thing about keeping your mouth shut, though, is that you keep too much trapped inside. You lose track of what needs to be said and what doesn’t until you stop saying anything at all.

You got lost, ran away, before the door swung shut behind you, and as you pushed further and further away, it stayed cracked, got caught in the wind, and swung back open.

* * *

**1986**

“You’re sure you want to do this?” You ask Reagan as she tugs her suitcase off the baggage strip and tugged up the handle. She lifts her head, blowing the bangs out of her eyes, and nods.

“Oh, hell yeah,” she said. “After a full year, you finally tell me where you came from, and where _the scars_ came from, and if you really _are_ telling the truth, and you’re _not_ insane,” she gives you a pointed look, “Then I need to see it.”

“This isn’t a vacation, Reagan.” You pull on your bag handle, and start down the linoleum walkway toward the doors, Reagan jogging to walk beside you. “If…if it’s really happening again, it’ll be just as dangerous. You could get hurt.”

“All because I decided to go to Indiana for the summer,” Reagan says. She huffs, and her lips quirk up in a grin. “It’ll be a good story, nonetheless.”

“ _Reagan_.”

She stops just as you pass the doors, stepping out into the warm Indiana summer heat, and you step to the side, tugging your bags out of the main walkway. Her expression turns serious, and her lips pull into a thin line.

“I know. It’s dangerous. But if you think there’s any way in hell I’m letting you go do it on your own, you really have lost it.”

A horn honks down the street, behind the few cars idling at the curb and unloading or loading passengers. It’s a small airport, quiet even with the summer rush, and you easily locate Robin’s beat up Honda pulling into a vacated spot on the curb. She pushes her door open and jogs around the car, throwing her arms around you and hugging tightly. You hug her back fiercely, pulling back to look at her, hair a little longer than it was, that familiar lopsided smirk tugging on her lips.

“You made it,” she says. “Nancy, Jonathan, and I had a bet about whether you’d actually show up.”

“Who won?” You ask. Robin’s grin widens.

“Nancy and I.” Her gaze flicks to Reagan beside you, and you swear you hear her heart skip a beat, her expression shifting and her ears going pink. She holds out a hand to Reagan, her smile now shy. “I’m Robin.”

“Reagan,” says your roommate, shaking Robin’s hand and holding on a beat longer than necessary. For a long moment, the pair just stare at each other, their mouths practically gaping open and shut like fish.

“If you two are done with,” you gesture between them, “whatever this is, I’d love to get this over with.”

Robin’s head snaps your way, her cheeks flushing red for a beat before she composes herself, nodding her head. She reaches for the handle of your suitcase, tugging it toward her car, you and Reagan following closely behind. Reagan plops into the backseat, sliding across the bench to sit in the middle, and you take the passenger seat, Robin climbing into the car after depositing the suitcases in the trunk and starting the engine.

It rumbles to life, slowly and painstakingly, the engine pushing out the all-too-familiar scent of oil and something vaguely floral smelling. Robin claims she dropped a flower petal into one of the AC vents, but Steve says it was a piece of candy.

His name flits through your head like a leaf caught in the wind, getting snatched on a branch and waving in your face.

You aren’t just coming back to Hawkins, or back to the Mind Flayer, or the Upside Down, or even the place you almost died. You’re coming back to Steve Harrington. Only this time, you’re in different orbits. This isn’t just another rung on the tree, another lap around the track.

You’re running an entirely new race, and a year ago, you didn’t just leave your team, you deserted them. You deserted _him_.

It wasn’t an easy decision; it still isn’t an easy decision.

You’ve loved Steve Harrington for years, but loving him is killing you; loving him nearly killed you. As long as you’re around the Upside Down, you’re around Steve, and vise versa. Both have proven to be deadly.

So, you left it behind. You walked away and peeled off the stickers holding you in place and shook off the blood. You let Hawkins and Steve Harrington go because you had to, because if you didn’t, you’d lose yourself, or you’d lose your life, and after everything, your capability to give was severely limited. Even though it hurt. Even though it scarred.

* * *

The drive back to town is quick, and though you spend it staring silently out the window, Robin and Reagan easily fill the space with conversation, too caught up in their obvious flirtation to chide you for being quiet.

It feels like a lifetime since you’ve been home, since you drove past Melvald’s and the theater and the police station with all their crawling vines and faded brick. The summer sun shines high and bright in the sky, but with the windows down and the breeze coursing through the car, it’s easy to feel like this really is just a trip home, a vacation.

“Where are we going?” You ask when Robin turns into the residential streets, in the opposite direction of her house.

“Apparently Karen Wheeler’s sister is having a baby, or just _had_ a baby, or something like that, so she took Ted and Holly to Ohio. Nancy and Mike were allowed to stay if they had supervision, and since the Byers suddenly and conveniently had to come back to Hawkins, it worked out perfectly,” she says, flashing you a grin. You snort.

“The Wheeler halfway house, active again.”

“And yet again, they’re completely unaware of it.”

Reagan leans forward between the seats, brows furrowed.

“So,” she says casually, “is this whole monster thing some big metaphor for, like, The Man, or something like that?”

Robin snorts a laugh, sending Reagan an incredulous look over her shoulder.

“The Man? Really?”

Reagan shrugs, leaning into your seat to get a better view of Robin; neither one of them is being subtle, but, knowing both of them, they’re predictably oblivious to the other’s attention.

“You can’t tell me some corrupt government shit isn’t more plausible than monsters. Literal, horror movie, monsters.”

“The effects in those movies are horrible,” you say. “Nothing like the real thing.”

Reagan reaches around the seat to swat you before turning her focus back to Robin, cocking a brow.

“Have you seen one?”

“Unfortunately,” Robin says. “And Y/N’s right. The real thing is about a million times freakier, and, surprisingly, really gooey.”

“Gooey?” Reagan asks, scrunching her nose. Robin nods.

“Gooey.”

“It’s just El, the Byers, and Nancy and Mike there?”

Robin nods, pulling onto the Wheeler’s street, the sidewalks already bustling with kids on bikes or teens heading to town.

“I mean, you know the kids. Find one, find them all.” She flicks a glance in your direction. “But Steve isn’t there. He doesn’t get off work until four anyways.” You look at the clock: 2:47 PM.

Reagan straightens, head snapping your way, gaze burning a hole into your temple.

“Steve?” She asks. “So, the boy gets a name.”

“Oh, you’ve heard about Steve Harrington?” Robin asks. You swat at her, and she ignores you.

“Not by name,” Reagan says, shooting you a quick glare. “But I knew there was someone, and, from what I could gather from you drunk or sleepy, it ended badly. Like, burn their stuff, bad.”

“Accurate,” Robin says.

“ _Not_ accurate.” You fold your arms across your chest. “No stuff was burned.”

“Because you left before anyone had the time,” Robin says in a low voice before grinning wickedly. She pulls into the Wheeler’s driveway and stops the car, climbing out and shutting the door before you can get a response in, effectively taking the argument’s win for herself.

You and Reagan hop out next, heading around to the back and hauling your bags out onto the driveway. Robin slams the trunk shut and tucks her keys into her pockets, coming to stand behind you and slinging an arm around your shoulder.

“Home sweet Hawkins,” she croons. You roll your eyes and push away, heading for the Wheeler’s front door.

* * *

Your abrupt departure from Hawkins the year prior is quickly and effortlessly forgiven by the kids - no longer kids, but sixteen year olds, lanky and gangly but growing up - who drag you right back into the fold. They’re mostly too excited to get in a word over each other, ending with Nancy yelling at them to shut up, and Joyce taking the reins.

According to her, El started seeing visions of Hopper two weeks ago. They figured out where he was - Kamchatka, Russia - and who took him - the Russians from Starcourt - and even pulled together a rough plan to free him. Which is where you come in.

Without Hopper, the remaining survivors are hardened, tough, capable, but not soldiers. El has no access to her powers, and even Nancy with her shotgun and Steve with a bat aren’t enough to infiltrate a Russian base and break out a prisoner. Plus, with the threat of a re-opening of the gate to the Upside Down, the stakes were high. High enough to necessitate help, to necessitate _you_.

In two weeks, the entire group - Steve, Robin, You, Joyce Byers, Nancy, Jonathan, and the kids - would join Murray - who, luckily but weirdly, has a pilot’s license and fortunately speaks Russian - on a plane to the Kamchatka Peninsula. Your job was to get the group as battle ready as possible by then. Your job was to lead the charge through the snow and gates to rescue Hopper.

The mangled scars on your stomach ache in protest of the reminder of all the things you’d left behind: the danger, the uncertainty, the fear.

Once the debriefing finishes, Joyce and Jonathan head upstairs to cook dinner, and the teenagers follow with the promise of food. Reagan persuades Robin into giving her a tour - a thinly veiled excuse, but one Robin happily and red-cheekily accepted - and leaves you and Nancy in the basement, where you curl up on opposite ends of the couch. You talk the way you used to, when you were in high school and friends and fighting the same battles. So much has changed since you left, but this hasn’t. Your friendship with Nancy, with Robin, with the others, is still mostly intact.

“I’m sorry you had to come back,” Nancy says, drawing her knees up onto the couch. “Monster hunting isn’t really anyone’s ideal vacation.”

“And yet, we end up doing it quite a bit. Interesting, isn’t it?”

Nancy’s lips curl up in a grin, and she shakes her head. “It really is.”

“How are things here? Everyone holding up after…” You stop, Hopper’s name dying on your lips. Luckily, Nancy picks up the thread. She smiles thinly.

“We’re doing as well as we can,” she says. “It’s not perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than it was a year go.”

You smile and say, “That’s something.”

“What about you?” Nancy asks. Her gaze flicks to your abdomen and back up, the tips of her ears going pink. “Last time I saw you, you had holes in your stomach.”

You snort, pushing to your feet.

“All healed up now.” You tug up the fabric of your tee shirt, revealing the long-scarred skin, like a tiger’s claws but larger, differently shaped, distinctly the Mind Flayer’s, completely unexplainable to anyone but the group.

You’re used to it after all this time, but you know it isn’t a pretty sight. You’ll certainly never model swimwear. The scar spans half your stomach, stretching over to your right side, large and inescapable.

Nancy’s lips part, equal part surprise and horror flickering in her eyes. She starts to speak, but is interrupted by the basement door, leading to the back yard of the house, swinging open.

And in walks your very own ghost.

The bruises and cuts have healed, only a tiny scar below his lip and the bumpy bridge of his nose left to indicate what he’s been through. Hair just a tad bit longer, eyes brighter, form more filled out.

Steve Harrington. He’s twenty, now; you missed a birthday. 

His eyes fall immediately to your exposed stomach and its patchwork scars, and he sucks in a sharp breath, gaze snapping up to yours. You yank your shirt back down, crossing your arms against your chest and forcing your features to stay even.

Steve’s brows pull together for a beat, and his expression wars between relief and frustration. In the end, the anger wins out.

“Look who’s back,” he says, tone bridging between teasing and accusatory. You bristle, cocking a brow and shaking your head.

“Here to save your ass. And what exactly are _you_ doing here?” You retort. He huffs a laugh, but its humorless, followed by an eye-roll so familiar it makes your chest hurt.

“Nancy called me,” he says. His brows twitch. “You’re not the only one who can hold a weapon.”

“No,” you say, “just the best at it.”

Steve’s lips pull thin, his jaw twitching.

You’ve seen him like this before, cold and cruel and unforgiving, but you’ve never been on the receiving end. You’ve never been so quick to shoot back venom.

At some point, you and Steve stopped being you and Steve, and became someone else, became other people, people you don’t recognize. It’s as heartbreaking as it is infuriating.

You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t ask for any of it.

Nancy stands from the couch, clearing her throat awkwardly. She shrugs a shoulder and inclines her head toward the stairs, nose scrunching up.

“I’ll let the others know you’re here, and get Robin and Reagan back in. Meet us up there?” She asks. You nod curtly, and she pauses for a moment, like she’s worried if she leaves you’ll rip each other’s throats out. Which, if you’re being honest, is a definite possibility. After a moment, she leaves, walking up the stairs and closing the door behind her as she enters the house, leaving you and Steve alone with three tons of tension between you.

You look anywhere but at him, arms remaining folded like a barrier in front of you.

“Why did you come back?” Steve asks eventually, not having moved from the doorway. He’s wearing the same faded jeans and tees you’ve seen him in every summer for years, still has that same curl to his hair and scrunch to his nose when he’s frustrated. He’s still the Steve you know, the one you remember, but at the same time, he’s a million miles away.

“Because everyone asked me too.”

He gives you a withering look, lips turned down in a frown.

“Because I had to,” you say. You hold his eyes for a long moment before looking away. “Because I made a promise.”

“You made a lot of promises,” he says thinly. You scoff.

“Not to you,” you say. “ _Never_ to you. And not for lack of trying. Whose fault is _that_?”

His eyes narrow, the expression on his face reminiscent of that of the Hawkins High hallways, when he was still just a cold, cruel boy. Before monsters and madness and mayhem. Before everything.

“You don’t get to blame it all on me,” he says. “ _You_ disappeared.”

“How long was I _here_ , Steve?” You snap. “I lived in Hawkins my whole life. You only cared when I was _gone_.”

His features twist, expression darkening.

“That’s not true.”

“The history is too fresh to try and rewrite it,” you say. “Try again later.”

He shakes his head, giving you an exasperated look.

“Does it get old? The whole untouchable, uncaring thing? Acting like everything rolls right off of you?”

“I don’t know,” you snap. “Did it get old for you?” He tenses, lips parting, response building on his tongue, but before he can spit it out, the back door opens and Reagan and Robin walk in, grinning and bright eyed. They stop when they see you, smiles dropping.

“I see you two are getting reacquainted,” Robin says. Steve shoots her a glare, to which she grins.

“Dinner’s upstairs,” you say, eager for an escape. Both girls take the bait knowingly, heading for the stairs, looping their arms through yours and pulling you with them.

“Come on, dingus,” Robin calls over her shoulder. “And try not to piss anyone else off while we eat, yeah? If you can manage it?”

Steve flips her the bird, to which she laughs, dragging you into the main house, where the others are piling food onto plates and pulling extra chairs up to the table.

You stick with Robin and Nancy, and though the younger teenagers fill what might otherwise be an awkward silence, the air in the room is still thick, even if only you and Steve can feel it.

One year ago, you were ready to die for Steve Harrington. And now, you can’t even look at him.


	3. part 3

**1984**

With the exception of a few helicopter parents lingering in their cars in the parking lot, the exterior of the gym was still, a stark contrast to the dance inside with its streamers and lights and music and laughter. A sliver of the decorated gym was visible past the glass doors, the punch table and a few feet of the filling dance floor.

Steve was too caught up staring longingly through the glass, he didn’t notice you approach the car, smacking your hands loudly against the doorframe and ducking your head to look at him through the open car window. He jumped half an inch at the abrupt arrival, huffing in relief when he saw you.

“ _Jesus_ ,” he hissed. “I’m getting you a bell.” You grinned, leaning your forearms against the door and inclining your head.

“Don’t tell me you’re joining the leagues of overprotective parents. Dustin’s mom is sufficient.”

He snorted, rolling his eyes. You ducked your head further, following the line of his periphery to Nancy Wheeler at the punch table inside the gym, and heat flushed Steve’s cheeks. Busted.

“So _that’s_ what you’re doing,” you said. His jaw twitched, and he shrugged dismissively.

“It is what it is,” he said.

“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck,” you said. He cleared his throat, effortlessly shrugging on his composed persona and leaned toward you, cocking a brow.

“What are you doing here? Crashing the dance?”

You snorted. “Crashing the middle school dance? Yeah, hard pass.” Steve’s lips quirked up in a grin. “Got roped into driving Max. I was about to head out when I saw you moping.”

“I’m not moping.”

You frowned.

“Get out of the car.”

“What?”

“I said, get out of the car.”

“What are you on?”

“Steve, get out of the car, or so help me-”

He raised his hands in surrender, muttering okay, okay, before undoing his seatbelt and popping his door open, climbing out of the car. As he moved around to your side, you leaned into the car and flipped the stereo on, skipping through the stations until you found something decent and turned the volume up loud.

He wasn’t really in the mood for it, really only wanted to get in his car and drive and drive until he forgot Hawkins and everything in it, but he couldn’t refuse you. Half because you wouldn’t let him, but half because he didn’t want to; because he physically couldn’t.

And if he did leave Hawkins behind, it meant leaving you. He’d never really thought about that before, about a life without you. He supposed you’d been around for so long it never occurred to him that one day, you might not be.

Picturing a life without you in it was like dragging a gray shade over the world.

“No way, I’m not-” Steve protested, understanding your intentions. You flashed him a mischievous grin, and he relented, though not without making a decent show of fuss - a facade, which you knew as well as him.

“I don’t think I asked,” you said, and held out your hands. Something inside him, something deep and still too far away to understand or touch, twisted open. He placed his hands in yours and you threaded your fingers through those on one hand, and guided his other to your hip, your own free hand moving to his shoulder.

“Two steps forward, two back,” you said, and Steve nodded, a tiny crease forming between his brows as he concentrated. “Slow, and if you don’t break my toes, we’ll pick up the pace.” He nodded again, one corner of his mouth twitching.

You pulled him back two steps, but when you tried to move forward again, he kept rocking toward you, and you smashed into each other, laughing the moment you made impact. Steve pulled back, hands moving to your shoulders to steady himself, and yours found their way to his chest, keeping him balanced, and suddenly, like the flip of a switch, the laughter stopped and the upbeat music shifted into a new song.

He wasn’t thinking about Nancy Wheeler or about anything but the pressure of your palms against his chest and the way your eyes flickered with something indecipherable but equally fascinating, like a door Steve wanted to jump right through.

Cyndi Lauper’s _Time After Time_ crackled to life on the stereo, soft, with slow notes and an easy rhythm.

Steve let his hands shift, settling against your waist and drawing you closer by an inch, and your arms slid up to wind around his neck, pieces fitting into place with no need for instruction, like you’d always known what to do when you got here.

He wasn’t sure when you moved closer together, when he tipped his forehead against yours, when both your eyes fell shut, but when the song ended, he was pressed so close he felt your warm breath on his lips.

You tilted your chin up, and Steve edged closer, and the world tunneled until only the two of you remained, standing beneath streetlights in a cold parking lot. Mouths a hair’s width apart, warm breath on lips, all careful movements, slow and steady.

Steve nudged his chin up to meet your lips, but at the last second, the very last moment, you edged back, eyes snapping open. Steve opened his eyes to meet yours, his lips parted, heart beating a mile a minute.

Something twisted in your expression, something unreadable, something that made Steve’s insides ache.

You held his gaze for a long moment before tearing it away, pulling away from him and out of his arms, the loss of contact like a slap in the face.

“I-” Steve started, and you shook your head, stopping him before he could finish, slicing through the moment and dragging a curtain in front of it.

“Other than the _stepping on my toes_ thing you’re not completely hopeless,” you said, tone edged with tension, though neither you nor Steve acknowledged it. He nodded, lips pulling up in a thin, half-hearted smile.

The almost kiss was never spoken of, but it followed you around like cans clattering behind a newlywed’s car, and it was impossible to forget, impossible to move around.

That’s the thing about almosts. They cling to you like vines, loop themselves in and around you until you can’t see the differences anymore. An almost is a foot jammed into a door to keep it from closing, a cold draft that continuously carries through the opening and occasionally washes you in ice.

Steve Harrington was your almost, your biggest and most painful maybe.

* * *

**1986**

You didn’t hear the door at the top of the stairs open, nor did you notice Steve Harrington coming down the stairs and into the basement, walking over to where you’d nodded off at the small folding table. He spoke to wake you, and the noise dug deep into your subconscious and dragged you back to consciousness, panic alight at the unexpected voice. Your eyes snap open, head jerking up, and you pull the small pistol you perpetually keep tucked into a pocket and aim the barrel at the intruder.

“ _Jesus_ ,” Steve curses, lunging back and out of the gun’s aim. With a sigh, you drop the gun onto the tabletop and twist in your chair to glare at him.

“What the hell are you doing?” You snap. He raises his hands in surrender, shaking his head.

“You’re the one that tried to kill me,” he says. “You were drooling on the table.” Your gaze drops to the tabletop, the tiny pool of drool, and you level Steve with another glare.

“Why are you here?”

He moves around the small card table and tugs out the flimsy chair on the other side, dropping into it and leaning his forearms against it. He jerks a chin toward the stairs.

“You told us to come,” he says. “Robin’s upstairs flirting with Reagan. The others are up there, too.”

You groan, raking a hand through your hair. Training. Of course. You, stupidly, agreed to take part in this inevitable suicide mission. You agreed to prepare the others.

“I said after lunch,” you grumble.

“It _is_ after lunch,” he says. “It’s noon.” He shrugs. “Everybody knows waking you up is risking losing a hand, so I was sent down as the sacrifice.”

One side of your mouth quirks up.

“Damn,” you say. “Should have taken that opportunity while I had it.”

His expression tightens, the joke missing its mark and landing somewhere painful, somewhere raw. The look on his face makes your own stomach twist, makes shame pool in your gut.

How is it possible that a year ago, he was the only person that made you feel better, and now, you can barely stand to look at him?

“Can I ask you something?”

“Can I stop you?”

His lips twitch up for a half second before pulling into a thin line, a crease forming between his brows as he averts his gaze.

“Why didn’t you say goodbye? When you left?”

The last words teeters on the edge of breaking, though Steve clearly tries to hide it, and the tiny show of vulnerability makes your chest ache. It used to be easy between you. Now, it’s like pulling teeth.

“Because I promised,” you say. “We promised. No goodbyes.”

“That was different, and you know it,” he says. “When we were down in the base or at the Byers, we were on a battlefield. We didn’t know if we’d survive, so we didn’t jinx our chances. You left, and you knew what you were doing. “Tell me the truth. Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?” His gaze snaps to yours and grabs on tight, holding you in place.

“I knew that if I told you,” you say softly, “if you asked me to stay, I would. And I _couldn’t_ stay.”

“Did you know you weren’t coming back?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters,” he snaps. He sits back, raking a hand through his hair before folding his arms across his chest, features contorted in frustration. “Last I saw you, you were dying in the food court. I waited in the hospital for three days-”

“I know you did,” you say, and he stops, brows furrowing, understanding dawning in his eyes.

“No one let me in. You told them not to,” he says. “You told them to keep me out.” He shakes his head.

You rip your gaze away and swallow the knot in your throat, shifting uncomfortably in the chair. There are no answers you can provide that will make it any better. You bolted; that’s it. That’s all there is. No sugarcoating, no softening. You ran like hell.

“Do you even remember how we met?” You ask. His jaw clenches. “I heard the noise coming from the Byers, and when I ran to see what it was, I found you at their door, already beat to shit. And then Nancy opened the door, and she dragged us inside, and she stuck a bat in your hand and a hammer in mine, and that was it.”

“So it wasn’t normal. When was the last time our lives were normal?”

You lean your arms against the table, threatening violence on the tears whispering at the backs of your eyes and shoving them deep down.

“Were we… _friends_ -” the word feels a little off, but you never made it further than that in labels, have no tags hanging off you to validate the ache you feel when you think of him, “because we wanted to be, or because we kept almost dying together?”

He huffs in exasperation.

“Does it matter?”

“It should.”

Steve shakes his head, fire sparking in his eyes, a hint of that old defiance. It made him reckless, but also, over time, dangerous.

“We saved each other. Fought those little shits and won every time,” he says.

“Did we win? Or did we just…survive?”

For a long time, you hadn’t known there was a difference between life and survival. You lived on a battlefield for so long you didn’t realize what it was until you stepped off.

“Every year, we go around and around, like clockwork. Even now. We always seem to end up back here.” You gesture to the basement, to all the memories that rest here and scattered around the town, far more tinged with blood than joy. “I couldn’t do it anymore. Not after…” You don’t finish the sentence, but his gaze drops to your covered stomach and the scars that lay beneath it.

“You could have talked to me. I would have…We could have…”

“What? What would you have done?” You let out a breath, shaking your head. “You and me went around and around, too.”

Fear unfurls in your gut, nerves that skitter along your skin and urge your mouth to stay shut, but you’re too tired of saying nothing, too tired of riding this endless train to not, at the very least, lay out its truth. It’s a breaking point, a collapsing of all the doubts and hesitations you’d strung up. You just don’t care enough to hold it in anymore.

“I’ve loved you since we were sixteen and fighting monsters under Christmas lights, and I think…” You flick your gaze up to his. “I think maybe you loved me, too.”

His jaw tightens, and he inclines his head, letting out a big breath as if he’s been holding it just as long as you’ve been holding yours.

“I did,” he says. His brows furrow. “ _I do_.”

Tears prick the backs of your eyes, but this time, you can’t hold them back, can’t keep the moisture from forming. The tears hold steady, waiting to fall.

“Every bad memory I have of this town, every horrible nightmare that wakes me up at night, has your name written on it,” you say. Steve’s own eyes go red around the edges, unshed tears glistening. “What am I supposed to do with that? What are _we_ supposed to do with that?”

He sighs again, and his expression twists, sadness flickering in his eyes and dragging down on his shoulders.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know.”

“I can’t…keep playing this game, you know?” You ask. “I can’t keep playing soldier for the rest of my life. I’m _not_ a soldier. _None of us_ are soldiers. We’re _kids_. And I can’t keep going in circles, because every time we do, I get sucked deeper and deeper. Last time, I barely made it out. I can’t do it again, Steve.”

Something splinters in his eyes at his name in your mouth, and even saying it feels odd, unfamiliar after so much time. His name has been a thorn on your tongue for so long, it’s weird to use it differently.

“I don’t want to spend this whole time fighting. So, can we just…do what we’re here to do?” You ask, though the words taste like ash.

Steve’s reaction to hearing it is the same as yours to saying it - pained and uncomfortable - but he nods, anyway.

* * *

“We’re starting with hand to hand fighting,” you say, standing with Reagan on the lawn across from Steve, Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, the kids, and Joyce, who is more a chaperone than anything else, refusing to stay out of the mission to save Hopper but agreeing to, at the very least, stay on the sidelines. “We’ll move on to other weapons in a few days, but a blade in your hand or a gun on your belt doesn’t mean shit if you get knocked out before you can reach it. You have to be prepared to fight with nothing.”

“Don’t the Russians have guns and dogs, though?” Lucas asks.

“The hell is a fist going to do against a gun?” Pipes Mike.

“Jack shit,” says Max.

“You’re all going to die if you don’t shut up,” you snap. It’s been a long time since this particular set of people was all together - specifically, since you were part of the group - and though the kids have mostly forgiven you for your departure, it’s clear there are a few bridges still burning.

“Today, we’re going over how to block. The soldiers will know how to fight, better than any of you. The goal is simply: don’t get hit.”

You jerk a chin at Reagan, who nods, flashing you a mischievous smile before lunging, swinging her fist right at your nose. Without hesitation, you throw up an arm, swiping her fist away with a forearm and opening up her own face for a punch that you pull the moment before it hits her.

A few of the kids suck in a gasp, and Reagan flashes another smile, coming at you again, playing the offense to your defense. As she throws exaggerated hits, you throw exaggerated blocks, knocking her hand away or twisting her wrist, explaining to the others what you’re doing. After a few minutes of demonstrations, you split everyone up into groups to practice, spread throughout the lawn with you and Reagan flitting between them to check form and make corrections.

Reagan spends a few minutes with El and Max, showing them how to use their small size to their advantage, teaching them to be quick and sly. The smile on El’s face, which Nancy has said is a rare sight these days, makes your chest warm, makes that piece of you that regrets coming back go quiet, at least for a little while.

California, and school, and the gym, and your life there, are wonderful, and beautiful, and comfortable. But this, these people, this is your family, and it has been for a long time. As much as Hawkins, Indiana is a bloody wound, it’s also a warm blanket, a place to rest between blows. It has that, if nothing else. It has _them_.

After a quick correction to Mike - untucking his thumb from his fist - you move on, though reluctantly, to Steve and Robin, who are predictably already off task. They’ve moved on from actual swings to ninja slices, giggling like children as they hop around and Steve tries to swipe at Robin, who spits expletives through her laughter as she darts out of his reach.

Steve, in his rush to catch Robin, loses his balance and rams right into you, grabbing onto you for balance and dragging his eyes up to yours, something indecipherable but painful flashing in them. You shove him off rougher than is necessary, and hurt flickers in his expression for a beat before he zips it back up, stepping back to stand beside Robin. He clears his throat, and Robin elbows him roughly.

“Great technique,” you tease, looking only at Robin. “Remarkable form.”

Robin grins, folding her arms across her chest and jerking a chin at Steve.

“Dingus here is very familiar with taking a hit by now. He’s got the scars to prove it,” she says. She cocks a brow. “But you already know that.” She flashes you a wicked, and not at all guilty, grin, to which you narrow your eyes.

“ _Jesus_ , Robin,” Steve says, shaking his head.

“What? Is it off limits now?” She asks.

Ever the eavesdropping, mischievous teenagers, El and Max drift closer, followed by Dustin and Lucas.

“What is off limits?” El asks, inclining her head. Dustin gets a goofy look on his face, and tilts his chin up at Steve.

“Oh, you know, the _tragic_ -”

“Finish that sentence, and you’ll lose the rest of your teeth,” Steve warns, only half kidding.

“That would require you to throw a steady punch,” Robin quips. “Which is near impossible. If it was Y/N, I could believe it…” She flashes you a grin, and you smile back, rolling your eyes.

Dustin grins, looks at Max and the others, and back at Steve, before yelling, “The tragic love story of Steve and Y/N!” Before darting away, a snarling Steve hot on his tail.

The others, drawn by the commotion, ditch their practice and come to watch Steve chase Dustin around the yard.

“Successful first training lesson, I’d say,” Reagan says sarcastically.

* * *

The practice unofficially ends with Dustin tripping Steve into the bushes, and everyone departs the Wheeler come quickly after, save for Nancy, Jonathan, Joyce, El, and Will. After a quick dinner, they head up to their rooms, and you and Reagan descend to the basement, curling up under blankets on the couches and listening to the soft hum of the record player in the corner.

“You know,” Reagan muses from the other couch, “Steve was staring at you the entire afternoon.”

You groan, balling the blankets up against your chest and giving her a withering look.

“Let’s not talk about that.”

She makes a face.

“I followed you here after you told me a crazy story about monsters and telepathic twelve year olds and…and parallel universes. I followed you because you asked for my help, and I didn’t ask questions,” she says, pushing to a sitting position. “But I’m _asking_ _you_ now. There are holes in the story, and I know it’s about him, but I have to know the whole thing if I’m going to go into this thing.” She pauses, expression softening. “But not just that. I can… _see_ how much it still hurts. How much _he_ still hurts. I’ve seen it for a year, and I’ve watched you _hurt_ over all these things that happened to you, these things you never tell anyone about, like you’re all alone in the world. Even now, with people who know. I know it feels like you’re alone, but you’re not. You’re _not_.”

Tears well in your eyes, an overwhelming flush of affection for your friend rushing through you. Reagan, who came here simply because you asked, who always made you laugh on your dark days, on the days adjusting was a bigger mountain than you could even think about climbing.

So you tell her the truth. The whole truth. About meeting a beat up Steve Harrington outside the Byers house and being dragged into that world hand in hand. About circling around something you never talked about, something you saw and felt and heard; an arrow that never quite met the bullseye.

You tell her about bleeding out on the floor of the mall, of feeling Steve’s tear drip onto your cheeks as you slipped into the darkness, of waking in a hospital and deciding to run.

You tell her about the running, itself. About crying in Robin and Nancy’s arms as they dropped you off at the airport, about making them promise not to tell _him_ where you’d gone.

About everything.

And when you’re done, she wipes the tears from her cheeks and climbs off her couch, crossing the carpeted floor to drop down next do you, ducking her head against your shoulder. It’s a small gesture, but an intimate one, one that makes you love the friend who followed you blindly into another world even more.

“I can’t tell you the right thing to do,” she says softly, “but I can tell you what I’ve learned. I know that it’s…hard to believe. Hell, I didn’t believe it for a long time. I’ve been burned more times than I could ever count. But… _sometimes_ , things work out. There’s that old saying ‘love isn’t enough’ and I think that’s true, but people misinterpret it. It _isn’t_ enough. Not on it’s own.” She loops her arm through yours, letting out a sigh. “You have to fight for it. Just like you had to fight monsters and possessed assholes. It’s different fighting, but still fighting.”

“What if I don’t want to fight anymore? What if I can’t?” You ask.

Reagan shakes her head.

“Human beings are cockroaches, always have been. We’re stronger than anyone gives us credit for, even if we use it for for the wrong things sometimes,” she says. “You might think you’re broken, that you’re too far gone, but that’s bullshit. You have never been anything but whole.”

You’re not sure if that’s true, but you’d like it to be. If it is, it means there’s hope. Not necessarily for you and Steve Harrington - that might be a bridge too burned to ever cross again - but for everything else. For every step after this one. And if there’s hope, there will be a thousand more steps ahead.


	4. part 4

**1986**

Despite the group’s unshakeable tendency for roughhousing and joking, they were all like sponges, even the older teens, all familiar enough with the skeletons in their closets to know when to hang up their rebellious suits and don coats of focus. As it turns out, Max can throw a harder punch than half of them, Lucas is weirdly good at kicking out people’s kneecaps and buckling their legs, and even Jonathan managed to get a hit on you while practicing, all of them finding their own talents and wielding them.

El still can’t reach the void, or her powers. Their working theory is that when the gate closed, her powers were severed, but Eleven was a powerful telepath before she opened the gate in the first place, and by the fifth day of training, you’ve come to believe there is no physical - or, you suppose, supernatural - force standing in her way. El is standing in her own way, her loss and fear and grief slapping invisible cuffs onto her power. But that isn’t something you can teach like a punch or a kick; it’s something you learned when you woke up in the hospital after Starcourt.

Nobody saves anybody else. That’s not to say we’re all hopeless, that it’s every man for himself with no consideration otherwise; it’s more like, the only person who can free you _is_ you. Having other people around makes it easier, makes the solid lenses turn opaque, but only you can decide to take the glasses off completely.

We are the masters of our own gates. Eleven is the master of hers; she’s just forgotten that she’s holding the key.

On the sixth day, you move onto knives. Everyone is going in with a tranquilizer gun and ammo, but a gun can be lost or taken or dropped, and a blade can come in handy.

You’ve managed to avoid Steve Harrington, as much as possible given the circumstances, but there’s no avoiding him today, the group splitting into pairs and leaving only you and Steve unclaimed. Neither Reagan nor Robin appears guilty at all about leaving you to the metaphorical wolf, both far too pleased to watch your suffering and flirt like children whilst doing it.

You shoot them both deathly glares as you and Steve move past them, each pair spreading out on the lawn, but they feign innocence and pretend not to notice.

Turning to face Steve, you toss the second knife lightly toward him, and he flinches, but catches it. You scoff, cocking a brow.

“If I wanted to kill you, I’d have done it already,” you say. His brows twitch.

“Hilarious,” he says, and one side of your lip curls up in a smirk.

“Wasn’t joking,” you say, and nod to the hand holding the knife, lifting yours and gesturing for him to do the same. “Did you pay attention, or do we need to go over it all again?”

“Does being a dick ever get old?” He asks.

“You would know,” you retort. It’s a low blow, and though you should, you don’t regret taking it. You’ve got years of longing and heartbreak behind your hands, and it’s incredibly difficult not to shove it back his way.

He huffs, swiping with the blade, clearly holding back and distracted, his gaze flicking between your blade and your eyes, lingering too long on the latter. It’s immature, but frustration coils in your gut, an old anger that you left behind; unfortunately, the embers are still burning.

He shouldn’t be able to look at you like that, to talk to you the way he does, to _be_ the way he is, and not go any farther. He shouldn’t be able to tug on your emotions like you’re the marionette and he’s the twisted puppeteer holding your strings. It’s not fair, not fair of him, not fair to you. No matter what, no matter how far you run, you always end up back here, and it’s not _fair_.

Letting your anger spring to the surface for a beat, you lunge, jabbing forward with the blade, pulling back just before the tip brushes his chest. He sucks in a breath, gaze snapping to the knife, eyes wide.

You let the dagger fall away, regret flaring hot and sharp in your gut. You expect him to call you out, or give you shit, or do something like he used to, but instead, he just looks at you with this expression that is unreadable but painful, and lunges with the knife again, like you’re nothing more than training partners for the day.

And that’s all you are, technically. Technically, you’ve never been more than a soldier on the front lines with Steve Harrington, never more than a friend. But, technically, monsters and telepaths and parallel universes don’t exist, so you stopped caring about technicalities a long time ago.

You stopped caring about all the technicalities except what you are to Steve, at least.

Even with the snappy remarks and shaded comments, you fight well together, almost as well together as you fight with Reagan. Once upon a time, you watched each others blindspots, knew them better than your own. A lot of that ease has been lost, but not all of it, little pieces clicking back together the longer you strike and parry. After half an hour, you’re both dripping with sweat, and the tether between you doesn’t feel as frayed.

The moment Reagan calls the training session to a close, though, the tether snaps again, whatever familiarity you’d found giving way beneath both your irritation and desperation.

“Maybe you won’t get beaten to shit this time,” you say, wiping the sweat off your brow and turning back to the others, Steve joining you. He scoffs, throwing you a tense glare.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t hate it,” you say, inclining your head and pretending to think. His eyes narrow, lip curling to fire back a remark, but before he can, Robin sidles up between you, looking between you with exaggerated focus.

“No fatal blows. I’m shocked.”

“You owe me five bucks,” Reagan says, grinning and smacking Robin on the shoulder. Robin smiles back, rolling her eyes.

“Another bet?” Robin asks. She flashes you a wicked grin. “Two weeks of training left. They’re bound to break at _least_ one nose.”

“You should go broader on the bet,” Nancy says, joining the conversation with Jonathan, who nods in agreement, finishing Nancy’s sentence.

“Yeah, it could be an arm, or a leg, or even just a black eye. If you want your money, go specific,” he says. Nancy nods along.

“Thank you,” you say sarcastically, “you’re all really helpful.”

“You’re welcome,” Robin says with a wink. You don’t say anything back, but the gesture made with a finger gets your point across clearly enough.

* * *

“Get dressed,” Reagan says, exiting the small basement bathroom with her training clothes bundled in her hands, outfitted in faded jeans, a crop top, and a dark flannel jacket, her hair half up, kohl eyeliner blackening the rims of her eyes and making the irises pop.

You frown, pushing up on the couch and setting the worn novel aside.

“Excuse me?”

“Get up and get dressed.” She tosses her dirty clothes into the small hamper near one of your makeshift couch beds and turns to you, folding her arms across her chest. “We’re meeting the others in twenty minutes.”

“Others? Meeting where?”

“Tomorrow is Robin’s birthday,” she says.

“I know.”

“So, Nancy’s throwing her a little get together. Reserved for upside down survivees.”

“Surviv _ors._ ”

“Surviv _ees_ sounds better.”

You give her a withering look, and she continues, “Untwist your panties, it’s just some good old teenage drinking. No monsters, and no social interaction with people who don’t already know you have a tendency for…” She trails off, crinkling her nose.

“Wanna finish that sentence?” You ask, eyes narrowing. Reagan shrugs, dropping onto the small armchair and dragging her sneakers to her, unlacing them.

“Oh, come on. I can’t be the first to tell you that you’re prickly.”

“ _Prickly_?!”

“Yes, _prickly_ ,” she says. “Nicer word than I could have used.”

“Your kindness is overwhelming,” you say drily. Reagan grins.

“Thank you,” she says. “Now get the fuck off the couch.”

* * *

The unofficial birthday party takes place at the junkyard, and by the time you and Reagan arrive, Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Robin have already dragged logs and near-broken chairs around a pit and started a fire, all nursing beers out of a box split open on the ground.

“You’re late!” Robin calls when you climb out of the car, and you wave a hand at Reagan, indicating her fault.

“I had to do some mild manipulation to get Y/N out of the house,” Reagan says, flashing Robin a grin and maneuvering around the fire pit to drop down onto the log beside her. With Nancy and Jonathan in lawn chairs, that leaves one more place to sit, inevitably right next to Steve on a log that is certainly too small for two people.

Jonathan pulls two beers out of the box and tosses them to you and Reagan, and you snap them open, fizzy liquid running over your fingers. He and Nancy hold theirs out, and the rest of you follow suit.

“To another year,” Nancy says. “You made it through this one.”

“Might want to wait a week or two to make that claim,” you say. Nancy rolls her eyes.

“Debbie downer,” Robin says.

“What would we do without our resident pessimist?” Nancy asks.

“Honestly, I don’t know how you guys aren’t all pessimists, now,” you say. You weren’t always like that; there must have been a time when you believed in goodness. But after the last few years, you can’t really remember that.

“After this, we might all change our minds,” Steve says, the first time he’s spoken since you and Reagan arrived, uncharacteristically quiet these days.

“Alright, enough of that,” Robin says. “It’s my birthday, and I’m declaring it a no pessimism zone. Rein your shit in and drink another beer.”

Your lips curl up in a grin, and Nancy reaches for another beer, saying, “Don’t have to ask me twice.”

“Best parts of the year and worst parts,” Jonathan says, leaning forward, face lit by the flames across the circle. Robin sits back, drawing a foot up onto the log and twisting halfway toward Reagan, thinking.

“Best part…” She pauses. “Graduating high school and getting out of that hell. Worst part…” she pauses again, gaze flicking to your covered stomach and the scars the shirt hides. She shakes her head. “Too many worst parts to count.”

“Hopefully less next year,” Nancy says.

“Fingers crossed,” Robin says, though its clear neither she, nor anyone else, believes it.

* * *

Between your third and fourth beer, Nancy and Jonathan disappear into the darkness hand in hand and giggling, and between the fourth and fifth, Reagan drags Robin to the other side of the buses, presumably for the same reason Nancy and Jonathan left.

For a full five minutes, you manage not to implode from the awkwardness of sitting in silence beside Steve, but when both your cans run dry, only words are left to fill your mouths.

“Do you remember,” Steve asks eventually, “the first time we were here?” His gaze trails lazily across the junkyard, all shadows in the dark. You toss your empty can into the box that has become a trash can, nodding slowly.

“November of ’84,” you say, stomach twisting as the memories bubble to life inside you. “You’d just gotten-” you stop before saying _dumped_ , but the absence is clearly understood and Steve’s jaw tightens. You press on. “Dustin dragged us out here.” You let your gaze shift to the rusty bus, some of the outer coverings you and the others had tacked on that day - so many days ago - still remaining. “When those demo dogs found us, and you got off the bus to fight them…I thought you were done for.”

“So did I,” he says, half joking. He sneaks a glance your way. “You were so pissed at me when I showed up that day. I thought it was because you were worried.”

“I _was_ worried. But I was also…”

He nods, understanding. “Yeah.”

You turn to look at him, really look at him, look at him like you’ve wanted to since you got back to Hawkins. The wavy hair and the broken bump of his nose and the ghost of a scar at the corner of his mouth. You hadn’t noticed it before, but his eyes aren’t as bright as they once were, aren’t as trusting. It’s like you’re standing in front of a fence you don’t recognize because you’ve always been on the other side of it.

“I’m sorry,” you say, “for leaving the way I did. I know it was wrong, and that I hurt y-I hurt everyone, but I didn’t know what else to do. That doesn’t make it okay, but…” You shift, holding his gaze. “I wasn’t just leaving _you_. It wasn’t just you.”

“Doesn’t make it feel any better,” he says, a brow twitching. You nod, letting out a breath.

“It’s not much fun on this side, either.”

He holds your eyes for a long moment before tearing them away, ducking to pick up a leaf and pulling on its edges, peeling fragments away until only the veins remain. He lets it fall, and picks up another.

“How are you, Steve? Really?”

“Are we _those_ exes-” He stops, realizing his mistake, wincing. He shakes his head. “I’m okay. I always am.”

“You always _say_ that you are.”

His brows pull together, and he ducks his chin, hair falling over his forehead and hiding his eyes from your view.

“Are you really okay?” You ask. He lifts his head. “Just give me a straight answer, just this once.”

His lips pull thin and he meets your gaze, looking far older than his years at that moment.

“I’m okay enough,” he says.

You let out a sigh and lean slightly toward him, the alcohol buzzing in your blood delaying the warning bells that go off in your head. It seems Steve is in the same boat, and he dips toward you, eyes falling shut.

You’ve waited for this kiss for years, waited for so long that it doesn’t seem possible that you’re leaning into it, but now that it’s here, now that you’re here, you can’t lean any further.

A year ago, it might have ended the way you’d always dreamed. But it isn’t a year ago, and you’re not the person you were. You might not even be the person Steve loved, if he did love you.

You’re a ghost. Like maybe, just maybe, not all of you came back to life on that operating table. Like the good parts of you died in Starcourt.

What if all the good parts are gone, and this is all that’s left? A soldier who wishes desperately to escape the creature they’ve turned themselves into?

Steve’s lips are a hairs width from yours, his breath warm on your cheek, and just before he kisses you, you pull back, exhaling sharply. Steve pulls back, too, hurt flickering in his eyes before he slams the wall back up in front of it.

“I was an idiot,” he says. “And now I’m too late.”

The part of you that has clung to Steve Harrington like he’s some kind of lifeline, the part of you that loves him and probably always will, wants you to say _it’s never too late_. It wants you to drop to your knees and beg for some kind of forgiveness, to pretend the coals you’re standing on aren’t burning rather than acknowledging their heat and jumping off or turning it down.

But sometimes, it is too late. Sometimes the bridges are too broken to ever be mended, too broken to be crossed. You don’t know if that’s true of you and Steve, but you haven’t exactly had the best luck before now, and you can’t trust the world to give you anything without expecting them to yank it back.

Last time, it was you dying on the linoleum floor. This time, it could be him. Next time, or the next, or the next, someone would die, and they wouldn’t be brought back the way you were. You’re not sure you could survive that. You’re not sure you could bury Steve Harrington - or any of them, really - and walk away from it.

“It’s not that,” you say, though, maybe it is, just a little bit. It’s part of it, a substantial part, but not the whole of it. “It’s because…” You trail off, unable to speak the words in the face the words ‘ _I’m too late._ ’ Words that answer the question you’ve asked yourself for years whilst simultaneously slamming the door shut in your face.

The answers aren’t as simple anymore. Once upon a time, when you were children, love was enough. When you’re young, there aren’t as many paths to take, and you’re far more likely to line up. But now, even if you do want someone, even if they do want you back, it might not be in the same way or the right way.

His expression twists and settles into blankness, unreadable.

“Because you’re leaving again,” he says in a low voice, averting his gaze.

“I don’t belong here.”

Steve snorts, shaking his head. “You belong where you want to.”

His words render you silent. It’s a nice sentiment, and though its clear Steve believes it, you’re not quite there.

You’re still standing behind the glass, watching the world move ahead of you and trying to decide if you want to move with it.

When you left a year ago, you thought you knew what you wanted. You thought you knew the right path. But now, you can’t remember if you left because you wanted to or you left because you thought you had to, because you were afraid.

Maybe there are a million paths, and the only right one is the one that you choose for yourself, not based in fear or anger or shame, but a choice for _you_.

You’re not even sure you still have time for that. Maybe it is too late. Maybe you missed the shot or maybe you never really took it at all. Maybe none of it matters anymore.

You lift your gaze to Steve’s, your expression softening, and Steve’s brows twitch in confusion, but he doesn’t move or say anything or even breathe.

“Can we pretend, for one minute,” you say, “that we didn’t fuck everything up? For old times’ sake? Just one time?”

It’s not a fair request to make, is selfish and cruel, but you can’t stop yourself, can’t keep the lid on the bottle any longer.

You need an ending. Something to point to, a moment to prove to yourself. You need to shut this door, not leave it swinging, or you’ll continue to peek through it.

A crease forms between his brows, and the war is evident in his eyes. He must settle on the same side as you did, have the same realization that you did - that this could be it, the closing of a chapter neither of you acknowledged was being written - because he nods, licking his lips. When he meets your gaze again, his eyes are blown and his mouth is parted, and for the first time, there isn’t a single wall up in his expression. It’s wide open and piercing and deep with longing and loss.

Steve Harrington isn’t the popular kid from Hawkins High, and he hasn’t been for a long time. At some point, he became the best person you knew, the bravest - albeit reckless and stupid - and most loyal.

He deserves better than this not-so-merry-go-round. You both do.

“Just one time,” he says. Then you’re leaning toward him again, and he’s dipping toward you, but there’s none of the excitement that there should be, just a twisting in your gut and a tug of war between relief - the relief of _finally_ \- and dread - the dread of letting go.

When he kisses you - the way you’ve dreamed about for ages - you can taste the loss on his tongue, can feel the ache in the press of his fingers on your cheeks and the fluttering of his lashes against your cheeks. It’s not the kindest of kisses, all give and take and push and pull, wanting intertwined with frustration and losing, but it’s something to hold onto.

And when you pull back, neither of you says anything, simply staring at the other as you catch your breath.

You don’t want this chapter to end, but it has to. It has to, because if it doesn’t, you might not survive to the last page.


	5. part 5

**1984**

“Would you _please_ watch it with that thing. You’re going to take someone’s eye out,” you snapped. 

Steve stepped back another step, swinging again with his nail studded bat, hit landing smack in the middle of one of the many scarecrows you’ve arranged around the junkyard. It had been over a month since El closed the gate, since Will expelled the Mind Flayer, since Bob died and Barbara’s empty casket was buried, but old habits died hard. As it turned out, hesitance and distrust died even harder.

With no Nancy to distract him, Steve was a single-minded machine those first few weeks, focused solely on keeping an eye on the horizon, expecting another monster to come ambling over the hills.

So far, it hadn’t. Still, you and Steve ended up out here most afternoons, spending hours taking turns firing at stacked cans and beating the shit out of scarecrows. No amount of training could erase the memories that dragged behind you, but at least you slept more soundly believing you might be able to defend yourself from whatever woke you.

“Less elbow, more wrist,” you said from your perch atop a junked car, its blue exterior rusty and falling apart. Steve paused, blowing a chunk of stray hair out of his eyes, and tried again, this time hitting so hard the scarecrow’s head popped straight off and went careening into a pile of fence material off to the side. He turned to face you, swinging the bat up and over his shoulder, propping the other hand on his hips with a lopsided grin.

He was most himself in moments like these, when the skeletons in his closet pressed back behind his coats and the only thing visible was the silly boy he should have been all the time.

“You know, you could take me somewhere other than a junkyard,” you teased, hopping off the hood of the car and crossing the grass to where he stood, holding out a hand for the bat. He handed it to you, rolling his eyes and backing away. The light left his eyes a beat later, lips pulling into a thin line.

“It could come back,” he said. “Those things-they could come back. Or the assholes from the lab.”

“We’ve kicked their asses twice now,” you said. “You really think they’re coming back for round three?”

“ _You_ really think it’s over?” He asked, lifting a brow. You frowned, grip tightening on the bat’s handle. Steve nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

“Doesn’t mean we have to spend every day out here like goddamn hermits,” you muttered, though you’d never complained before, and wouldn’t again. As much as you might pretend to be bothered, you were just as comforted by practicing things like this as Steve was. It made the dark nights a little easier to pass through.

“What was that?” Steve asked. You tossed a grin over your shoulder, waggling your brows before turning back to one of the scarecrows.

“Nothing,” you quipped, and swung the bat as hard as you could. It landed smack in the middle of the thing’s face, the head snapping back and hanging on a string, two of the nails from the bat caught in the twine. You had to tug to free it, and in the process, nearly fell back into the dirt and grass.

You huffed, turning to face Steve, nodding at the bat in your hands.

“This thing needs an upgrade. The nails are too short. They’d get caught right in a Demodog’s head, and then you’re screwed.”

“I didn’t hear you talking shit when this thing saved your ass a month ago,” he said.

“I was too busy trying not to die to file a complaint,” you said, giving him a withering look, “but next time, I’ll make sure to let you know.”

“Or,” he said, a wicked and mischievous grin tugging on his lips, “you could keep it to yourself.”

You cocked a brow, a silent dare, to which Steve’s grin only widened. You lightly swung the bat at him, stopping it far before it was ever in danger of hitting him, but he reaches out, a hand closing around your wrist. At the sudden contact, you dropped the bat, but it’s thud was muffled by the slamming of your heartbeat in your ears.

He was close, closer than you’d realized, close enough to make out all the little details of his face. Hair in need of a trim and smile lines and the curve of his mouth, a million tiny pieces that came together to form Steve Harrington.

You needed to back up, to move away, to do something, but your brain signed off and left you stuck in place, powerless to do anything but wait for Steve to lean in or pull away.

For a long moment, he did neither, as locked in place as you, his gaze holding yours in a vice grip. For a long moment, you swore he could see right through you, could hear all the secrets you’d kept about your feelings for him, could feel the twist in your gut and the ache in your chest and the flutter of your heart.

His eyes dropped to your mouth and back up, a tiny crease forming between his brows, and for a moment, for a single, beautiful, solitary moment, you thought he might kiss you. You thought you were right, you were always right.

And then he pulled away, and you knew you were wrong. You’d always been wrong, and always would be.

Knowing that didn’t make you love him any less, though.

* * *

**1986**

A week before departing for Russia, you pull Steve to the side after yet another grueling training session. He’s immediately on guard, like you’re about to drag him into a dark alley to kill him or something ridiculous like that, but you ignore the tense set of his shoulders and the purse of his lips, leading him to the Wheeler’s garage.

A project you’ve been working on for a few weeks waits inside, something you’re not brave enough to give Steve in front of the others for reasons you can’t fathom.

“I’m guessing you’re still carrying that shitty bat around in the trunk of your car?” You ask. He folds his arm, leaning against the workbench and nodding, no longer hesitant but curious. For a moment, a breath, he looks like the old Steve. If you pretend, you’re still the people you were a year ago, before you died and then didn’t, before you left.

“Pretty sure you could have given me shit about the bat _outside_ ,” he says. Ignoring him, you duck beneath the workbench and pull out the bat you started imagining almost two years ago in the junkyard.

Solid metal with a rubber handle, six metal spikes at least five inches long protruding around the sides and another sticking straight out the top. If his old bat was a camfpire, this new one is a wildfire. If you’re right, it could take down a demogorgon - or, though you hope not, a soldier - with one swing.

You hold it out to Steve, but he doesn’t take it. His brows furrow and his lips part, his gaze falling to the bat before darting back up to yours.

“ _Jesus_ ,” he says, shaking his head, approval written into his features. “You made this?”

You nod and say, “I told you yours was in need of an upgrade.”

He shakes his head again, incredulous.

“It’s incredible,” he says. “I can’t believe- _jesus_ , it’s insane.”

You shake it lightly.

“It’s yours,” you say. He frowns, inclining his head.

“What?” He asks. You nod, pushing it forward. He takes it, though the indecision in his face indicates he hasn’t decided whether to keep it. “No. I can’t take this.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I can’t.”

Steve Harrington, always so damn stubborn. You huff in frustration, crossing your arms.

“It’s a gift, you _asshole_. Take it.”

“And I _appreciate_ _it_ ,” he says, “but there’s no way in hell I’m taking what is clearly the best weapon we have and leaving you with nothing.”

“We’ll all have tranquilizer guns, and I’m, like, _actually_ trained to fight. You’re the one with the concussion record.”

He throws his hands up, rolling his eyes.

“And _there_ it is.”

“There _what_ is?”

He props his hands on his hips, meeting your gaze with arched brows, his frustration tangible.

You’re regretting not breaking into his car and tossing it in the backseat like you originally planned. Shame on you for trying to make nice, you suppose.

Or, honestly, shame on you for leaving the way you did; for leaving behind what you did. If you’d done things differently, this argument wouldn’t be happening. If you’d done things differently, who knows where you might be; _who_ you might be.

“Admit it,” he says. “You don’t think I can take care of myself. That’s why you’re constantly on my ass in training. You think if you don’t watch out for me, I’ll trip over a twig and break my neck.”

“That’s not true,” you snap.

“No? Then why? If you hate me so much, why don’t you just _stay away_?” His words cut through you like knives, and all the anger snaps like a rubber band, disappearing and succumbing to the ache in your chest.

“Hate you?” You laugh mirthlessly. “I feel - have felt - a lot of things about you, Steve Harrington, but I’ve never hated you.” You meet his gaze, lips pulling thin. “Not even when I wanted to.”

Whatever retort he had planned falls away, and he does nothing but look at you, wide eyed and unreadable.

“I know everyone gives you shit about what happened before, and I do my fair share of that, too, but you’re also the first person I’d pick to fight beside me. Even now,” you say.

He rolls his eyes, dismissive, and you press forward.

“I’m serious. You’re loyal, and you’re brave. I’m giving you the bat because I know what you can do with it,” you say. “And we need that. So, get over yourself, and accept the compliment and the gift, or I’ll beat your head in with this thing.”

He stays silent for a long minute before one side of his mouth quirks up into a lopsided smile you haven’t seen in so long it twists your heart in half.

“Is it really a gift if it comes with a threat?” He asks, cocking a brow. You roll your eyes.

“Nothing in our lives has been normal for a long time. Why would gifts be?”

His smile falters and he lifts the bat, looking down at it, stroking a finger along one of the spikes before meeting your gaze.

“You told me once you didn’t think this would end,” he says. “I thought you were wrong. I don’t think I do anymore.”

Your brows pull together, affection coiling in your chest. If anyone deserves to move on, to find a life, it’s Steve Harrington.

Steve Harrington, the boy who threw himself into this battle simply because it was the right thing to do, who kept coming back each year to fight monsters he’d vowed to help kill. He doesn’t owe them anything, and yet, he’s always here, always risking his life to help save others.

Once upon a time, you thought this nightmare would go on forever. You believed it with every fiber of your being. It’s why you ran; it’s why you still haven’t stopped. You’re still running from the demons and ghosts clattering behind you.

You don’t want to run anymore.

Something is different about this time. You can feel it in the air, can feel that you’re inching toward the finish line. You don’t know what rests beyond it, but at the very least, you’ll reach it.

“No,” you say. “I was wrong.”

“Don’t tell me you’re becoming an optimist.”

You laugh. “More like, trying to hold onto hope.”

“Hope,” Steve says, like he’s testing out an unfamiliar word. In many ways, it’s a new concept. He meets your gaze, pressing his lips together for a long moment before speaking. “Thank you,” he says. “For the bat. For coming back.”

“I promised, didn’t I? _We_ promised,” you say. You both promised to keep fighting until there was no enemy left, and leaving hadn’t nullified that contract, not to you.

One side of Steve’s mouth curls up, but it’s a sad smile.

“Yeah. We did.”

* * *

To your surprise, Robin is propped up on the basement couch when you come back inside, despite your having thought she left with the others. At your entrance, she grins, folding her arms and cocking a brow.

“And where have _you_ been?” She asks, though it’s clear from her expression she already knows the answer. You flip her the bird, making your way over to the couch and plopping down beside her.

“What are you still doing here? I figured you’d be in bed by now.”

She snorts and says, “It’s like 6 PM, thank you very much.” Her smile turns shy, and she shrugs. “Besides. I have a date.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Don’t act so surprised.”

“That’s amazing, dude,” you say. “Doesn’t explain why you’re here, though.”

She grins.

“My date is in the shower.”

So, one of them finally wised up. Your lips curl up in a smile and you lean toward her, waggling your brows.

“Took you long enough.”

“It’s been three weeks,” she says pointedly, “and people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

You grumble a reply, waving a hand dismissively.

“That’s-“

“Different?” She finishes. You frown, and she nods, shrugging a shoulder. “Yeah. Sure it is.” She straightens, dragging a small pillow onto her lap and leaning onto it.

“Robin…” you say softly.

“Hmm?”

“I know I don’t really have a right to know this, anymore, so you can tell me to screw off if you want to but…is he okay? Like, actually okay?”

By _he_ , you mean _Steve_ , but luckily Robin understands. Her lips pull thin and she leans sideways into the cushions facing you, biting on her cheek.

“After you left, he was…” She winces as she says the word, and you flinch when you hear it. “Devastated.” She shakes it off, continuing. “The worst were the nightmares. I stayed with him for a week after, since his parents were still out of town, just to make sure he didn’t die in his sleep or something.” She averts her gaze, chewing on the words before deciding to speak them. “He screamed your name every night that week. You did a number on him. For a while, I wasn’t sure he was coming out of it. But then he did.”

She pauses, then reaches out to take your hand, giving you a sympathetic, almost reassuring smile.

“He’s not the same, but neither am I. Neither are you. But I think he’s okay. Or, at least, he’s getting there,” she says.

“Does me coming back fuck all that up?” You ask.

“It fucks it up, but not the way either of you are thinking,” she says.

“What does that mean?” You ask, but your question goes unanswered as Reagan exits the bathroom, redressed in jeans and a sweater, toweling off her hair.

“Ready?” She asks, unaware that she’s interrupted something, and Robin is far too eager to get out of answering, flashing you an apologetic smile before hopping to her feet, clearly grateful for her reprieve.

“Go upstairs,” Reagan says, coming to the couch and sitting beside you to lace up her sneakers, rocking her shoulder into yours. “Stop hiding down here.”

“I’m not hiding.”

“You’re totally hiding,” Robin says.

You roll your eyes, ignoring them.

“Be home before ten, or you’re grounded,” you say. Reagan laughs, and Robin snorts, the pair heading for the door, Robin’s car keys jangling in her grip.

“Okay, mom,” Robin says.

“Have fun.” They both flash you smiles over their shoulders, and push through the door, leaving you alone with your thoughts.

You knew coming back to Hawkins would be painful. You knew it would be hard, uncomfortable, borderline agonizing. And it is, but not in the ways you imagined.

When you left this town a year ago, you thought you were shutting the door on Steve Harrington, but now that you’re back, it feels like everything has been ripped back open, and you’re not sure if it’ll be survivable again.


	6. part 6

**1985**

The elevator hadn’t moved in ages, and with each hour that passed, your anxiety climbed higher and higher, stretching all the way up the elevator shoot and back up to the mall. If only your body could make it that high, you wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.

Robin had nodded off in one corner, curled between two boxes, and even Dustin and Erica had quit their bickering and dozed off, leaving you and Steve crouched in the far corner, shivering against the cold and fighting past the exhaustion settling heavily into your limbs.

“Do you think this will ever end?” You asked, tipping your head back against the steel wall and closing your eyes against the bright overhead lights.

“Course,” Steve said, his knees drawn to his chest, chin resting on his folded arms. He turned his head to look at you, one side of his mouth lifting. “The Chinese food in these boxes will spoil if they don’t come for it.”

Normally, you’d snort a laugh, toss back some remark about Chinese food being the last thing in those tubes, but you were tired, and not just physically. You were tired of this endless cycle, of fighting and defeating and fighting again, the cast of characters dwindling with each round in the ring. How long until all of you were dead? Until Steve, or Robin, or Erica, or Dustin were dead? Where did it end? _Did_ it end?

You narrowed your eyes.

“You know what I mean.”

His brows furrowed and he lifted his head, expression softening as he shifted toward you, lowering his voice.

“This won’t last forever.”

“What if it does?”

“It won’t.”

“How do you know that?”

He pursed his lips, sitting back and shaking his head.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I have to believe it won’t. What’s the other option?”

You averted your gaze, and Steve reached out, taking your hand and threading your fingers together.

“Hey,” he said, drawing your gaze back to his face, “It’s gonna end. And we’re going to be there to see it.”

You smiled, and squeezed his hand, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that he was wrong; that not everyone would be left standing at the end of this.

**1986**

Despite his near-constant jeering at the Russians in the entire time you’ve known - and known _of_ , for that matter - Murray Bauman, he has little issue securing travel into the country in addition to holding a pilot’s license.

The plane is small, and bumpier than anyone is comfortable with, but at last, after a month of preparing and planning and talking yourselves into it, you’re going after Hopper. You’re marching toward the finish line, and this time, you’ll have more people than when you started.

With a few rows of pairs of seats, everyone is sandwiched, and you end up next to Steve on the flight. Luckily, he doesn’t try to make conversation, tugging out a walkman and pulling on headphones, falling asleep within minutes.

As the plane flies through the air and the world outside the windows goes dark, sleep overwhelms the other passengers. You chase sleep for hours, but can’t catch it, and settle for staring out the window.

You shift your weight and the old scar on your stomach twists, reminding you of its presence, almost like some kind of warning; reminding you how far this can go. Your gaze is drawn to Steve, eyes closed and features relaxed in sleep.

He looks younger in sleep, more like the boy he was when you first met him. Back then, he had no scars, had no worry lines etched into his forehead. He didn’t flinch at a dog’s bark, and he didn’t carry a weapon around in the back of his car just in case the monsters came back.

So far, they’ve come back every time.

He isn’t that boy anymore, closer to a man than anything, but that boy still rests just beneath his skin, visible in the little moments. You can see it when he laughs with Dustin or teases Robin, when he hums a song stuck in his head or makes a dumb joke.

That boy deserves more than this. He deserves better. You desperately, desperately hope this trip can give it to him; to all of them. To every child and teenager and adult in this plane that lost something to the Upside Down and the people who weaponized it.

_This won’t last forever_ , Steve once said.

_Do you think this will ever end_ , you’d asked, and he said he did, because he had to.

Back then, you said you didn’t believe it. You’d left hope behind on a linoleum floor stained with your blood, and you didn’t think you could ever get it back.

Somehow, without your realizing it, you did. It’s dangerous, and it’s risky, but you have hope that this really is the end of the line; that this can fix things.

Maybe it’s naive, but you’ve lost too much not to hold onto it.

If this really is the end, it changes things. It might change everything. What does the world look like without the Upside Down in it? What do you look like? Steve? You’d like to think that maybe, just maybe, there’s room for the things you never got to have somewhere in there, if only you can reach it.

But reaching the finish line is easier said than done, and mountains stand between you and the end, with shadows lurking behind every tree and tucked under every rock. There is no way to guarantee that anything will go the way you want it. It certainly never has before.

* * *

The motel doesn’t really deserve its title. Farmhouse is more fitting. Old, rundown, farmhouse, to be exact. But it’s a break from the summer heat, and it has just enough bedrooms to fit everyone, albeit cramped and in disrepair.

Joyce and Murray each have their own bedrooms, but there were only two more available, leading to a split between the ages: the teens and the young adults.

With a cot, two beds, and a couch, you, Reagan, Robin, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan are stuffed into a bedroom for the night. You and Reagan take a bed, with Robin and Nancy in the other, Steve and Jonathan on the cot and couch.

The room is dark and quiet within an hour, the long flight and time difference exhausting everyone.

Reagan rolls toward you, shifting close so she can make out your face in the darkness.

“Can’t believe my summer vacation is in the Soviet Union,” she says.

“I’m sorry, Reagan,” you say. “For dragging you into this. If something happened to you, I’d-”

“Hush,” she whispers. “Don’t do that. I would have followed you, anyway. Half for the drama-” She grins, and you roll your eyes. “-but also because you’re my best friend. I’ve waited a year for you to open up to me, and so far, it’s been damn worth it, so don’t go apologizing. I don’t regret it, and neither should you.”

You let out a sigh, and Reagan reaches out, tapping your arm lightly.

“You’re like a hero,” she says. “Pretty fucking cool.”

You scoff, and

“Y/N, Reagan, I will chuck this pillow straight at your faces if you don’t be _quiet_ ,” Robin grumbles sleepily from the other bed. Steve snickers, and even Nancy laughs, though she tries to hide it.

“Charming,” Reagan calls.

“I’ll be charming again in the morning,” Robin says, and tugs the blanket over her head. Reagan rolls her eyes and leans closer to whisper.

“I’m serious,” she says. “And as cheesy as it sounds, I’m honored to fight by your side.”

You smile, and say, “I don’t deserve you as a best friend.”

Her grin widens.

“You’re only figuring that out now?”

* * *

The other falls asleep quickly, but once again, sleep evades you. After an hour of tossing and turning you climb out of bed, jamming your feet into a pair of shoes and slipping out into the hall, heading for the window at the far end of the hallway opening to a small balcony.

You push out into the warm night air, leaning against the railing and closing your eyes. With your eyes closed, you could be anywhere.

A door down the halls opens and closes, followed by soft footsteps, but you don’t open your eyes until Steve walks up beside you, leaning his forearms on the railing and flashing you a thin lipped smile.

“Can’t sleep?” He asks. You shake your head. “Yeah, me neither. The whole, breaking someone out of a heavily guarded commie base thing makes it hard to fall asleep.”

You shift sideways and lean against the railing, folding your arms.

“Did you mean what you said,” you ask, “about not believing this will end?”

His brows pull together and he averts his gaze, eyes on the dark forest beyond the motel.

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “At some point, this shit started feeling like my life. How screwed up is that?”

You laugh humorlessly, nodding. “I get it. Why do you think I ran away?”

His jaw clenches and he blinks rapidly, pressing his lips together.

“You know, Steve,” you say softly, “when I left, I wasn’t leaving you.” You draw in a breath, shaking your head. “I mean, it was part of it, but it wasn’t you. I left because I thought I didn’t have any other choice. I may wish all this had never happened, but I don’t regret you. Being your friend was pretty much the only thing that got me through it, and I never thanked you for that. I should have told you that before I left. I should have said goodbye.”

Steve is quiet for a long moment before he says, “I should have made sure you knew I wanted you to stay.”

You let out a breath, and Steve turns his head to look at you, a sad smile playing on his lips.

“Guess we both screwed the pooch on that one, huh?”

“We were dumb kids,” you say, lips curling up.

“Now we’re dumb adults.”

“Full circle.”

He laughs, and falls silent, quiet for a long time before he speaks again.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You’re going to, anyway,” you say. He smiles, that same sad smile, the one that makes something inside you ache.

“Do you regret it?” He pauses, brows twitching. “Do you regret leaving?”

You hold his gaze, stomach churning and heart racing. Three years in Hawkins fighting monsters, and one year pretending monsters only exist in story.

Do you regret leaving?

Steve Harrington deserves a lot of things, and the truth is one of them. So, you give it to him.

> _A/N: This question, dear reader (pun intended) I can’t answer for you. There are a lot of choices I’ve made, but I can’t make that one. You’ve got the facts. Would you regret it?_


	7. part 7

**1986**

Kamchatka’s military facility is less guarded than you expected. This far into the peninsula, and this late at night, the soldiers seem to have lulled themselves into a false sense of security, leaving the gates half staffed and the entire place undermanned. 

The facility is on an acre of land, all fenced, but the main gate leads into a massive warehouse, the presumable headquarters and prisoner’s quarters. After three days of sending people out to watch, to memorize shift schedules and figure out the best way in, you’re finally here, standing in the trees beyond the base, bathed in moonlight.

You, Steve, Robin, Reagan, Nancy, and Jonathan are the first ones through the gate, the ones that take out the first set of guards with tranquilizer bullets and climb up and over the fence to open it up silently. Joyce waits in what has been unofficially dubbed the getaway car, keeping the engine hot and rumbling in the woods just out of sight.

“Lucas, Max, Dustin, Will, Nancy, and Jonathan, you’re taking the perimeters. Keep it clear for us,” you say quietly, everyone gathered in the dark just inside the gates, shivering against the cold night air. Whatever heat that followed you through the day was long gone, but you were grateful it was summer, or else you’d be three feet deep in snow by this point. “Steve, Reagan, Robin, Mike, and El, you’re with me. We’re getting Hopper.”

Shifting into two distinct groups, the stone-faced and thin-lipped teenagers - looking more like soldiers, right now, than anything - pull out their tranq guns. Steve has his gun tucked into a holster, and grips the bat you made him like it’s some kind of life raft; like without it, he’s drowning.

You wish you had something to hold onto - preferably, Steve’s hand - but you’ve messed up too much to have that right, and it wouldn’t matter anyway; you’re the leader of this mission, and as such, you have a duty to remain calm.

If you stay calm, the others will. If you stay placid, if you can stay level-headed, you might just be able to lead the others out of this, with Hopper in tow.

“If something goes wrong, get the hell out, and rendezvous back at the car,” you say. “Don’t be stupid. We’re not losing any more people today, do you hear me?”

“Roger that,” Steve says, and you flash him a grateful smile before you can stop yourself. He seems a little surprised, but he smiles back.

“We’ll keep your backs clear,” Nancy says, touching your shoulder and giving you a reassuring smile. You place your hand on top of hers, smiling and nodding.

“Good luck,” you say.

“Bring Hopper home,” she replies.

“And don’t get killed,” Max adds. You roll your eyes, and wave them off. The seriousness settles over them as they head along the wall, guns raised, and Jonathan meets your gaze over his shoulder, nodding. You nod back, and turn back to Steve, Reagan, Robin, Mike, and El.

“Alright, they should be inside that building. Let’s hope everyone is too busy sleeping off Stolichnaya to notice us sneaking around.”

“Fat chance,” Robin says.

“Way to kill the vibe, Robin,” Steve says.

“That’s my girl,” Reagan says, bumping into Robin’s shoulder. Robin grins, and bumps her back.

“You people do realize where we are, right?” You snap quietly, and they shut their mouths. You pause, turning to El. “Can you find him?”

Her expression twists, and she flicks a glance at Mike before dropping her chin, shaking her head.

“I can’t reach the void anymore,” she says. “It’s…no vacancy.”

“No room to get in,” Mike says, and El nods.

“Okay, no problem. We can do this the old fashioned way.”

“Bully for us,” Steve says stoically. You roll your eyes again and pick up the pace as you pass through the main courtyard, dark save for a strobe light that comes around every ten seconds and traces over the dirt-packed ground. The others follow, ducking quickly beneath the awning of the warehouse and letting out the breaths you held as you crossed the open.

“How do we know Hopper’s still alive?” Steve whispers, slinking behind you along the wall, the others behind him. “It’s been over a month since El saw him, if she saw him.”

You meet his gaze over your shoulder, lips pulling thin.

“We don’t know,” you say. “But we have to believe. What’s the other option?”

They are his words, spoken months ago in an elevator three hundred feet below the floor, but only now do you truly believe them. Believing is the only choice; believing is half the fight.

He snorts, one side of his mouth lifting, and you continue forward.

Getting into the building is easy, all the halls dark and empty. It’s quiet, too quiet for your liking, and you have to shake off your doubts. They come from years of looking over your shoulder, and you can no longer tell the difference between the false alarms and the real red flags.

The prisoner's wing is easily located, with two guards standing at the entrance to the hallway, and you take them out with tranqs before they even realize you’re there. Steve shoves their unconscious bodies out of the main walkway, and everyone splits off to flip open latches and check prisoners faces.

“Got him!” Mike calls from halfway down the hall, peering through a metal latch. Relief floods through you and you kneel beside one of the unconscious guards, hesitantly searching his frame for keys and reminding yourself over and over that he isn’t going to wake up and yell, “Gotcha!”

He doesn’t wake up, of course, and you find the keys in his pocket, tugging out the ring and jogging to where Mike and the others are gathered around the door. El is at the forefront, head hallway through the open latched slot.

“Hopper,” she calls, her voice trembling. “Hopper, wake up. Wake up.”

You push through Robin and Reagan, hands shaking as you test the keys, Steve scanning the hall behind you with his bat raised.

The key turns in the lock with a loud clank; the moment of truth. Your stomach churns, heart pounding like a kick drum, and you tug open the door to find a bald, weary, and fatigued Jim Hopper pushing himself to a sitting position on a cot, bringing his hand up to block the light from his eyes.

He’s thinner than he was a year ago, he looks a little odd with no hair, and he’s certainly worn to the bone, but he’s Hopper, and he’s alive, and that’s all that matters.

“Eleven,” he says, gaze locked on Eleven in the doorway. A tiny sob slips past her lips and she vaults forward, throwing herself into his arms. He catches her, arms winding tightly around her. After a beat, his hold tightens, and he buries his face in her hair.

El pulls back, shaking her head.

“I thought you were… _gone_ ,” she says. Hopper’s lips curl up in a lopsided, sadness-tinged smile.

“Me? Come on, kid. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”

Something halfway between a sob and a laugh pops out of El’s mouth, and when she turns, she’s smiling through her tears.

“We’re all going to be _gone_ if we don’t get the hell out of here,” Steve says, shifting his weight in the doorway, uncomfortable and on edge. He wants out just as badly as you, like he can feel the same thing you can, the emptiness in the silence, the curling of the air as if in anticipation.

Something doesn’t feel right, and you have no interest in staying long enough to figure out what it is.

“Can you walk?” You ask. Hopper pushes off the bed and jams his feet into a pair of thin, worn shoes.

“Lead the way,” he says, voice rough and raw from disuse. You flash him a smile and nod, turning to the others.

“You guys ready to blow this popsicle stand?” You ask.

“We missed out on popsicles?” Reagan asks, feigning shock. “Worst summer vacation ever.”

“Who is this?” Hopper asks.

“Reagan,” Reagan says. “Nice to meet you. Sorry about the shitty circumstances.”

“Time to go,” you emphasize. You step back into the hall to join Steve, and the others follow.

“Joyce is in the car-” Muffled gunshots, coming from somewhere outside, cut you off, and you slam to a halt, bile clawing its way up your throat.

Nancy, Jonathan, the others.

_No_.

You bolt without thinking, but before you make it to the end of the hall, the lights shut off and you’re bathed in blackness, unable to see anything but the tiny light bleeding through the door that leads outside.

The quiet. The lack of soldiers. You knew something was wrong, and you brushed it off.

“It’s a trap,” you yell, horror filling your voice, “It’s a trap! Run! Now!” You head for the door, slamming it open and lighting the way for the others, everyone scrambling out into the night.

Clicks sound from behind you as soldiers flick their safeties off, and ice washes through your veins, panic skittering across your skin and shredding your thoughts. You need to focus, need to get them out of here.

“El,” you say, dropping your gun and raising your hands, because there's nothing left to do, because there’s too many of them and too few of you, because you’re not soldiers like the men staring at you down the barrels of their guns. “We could really use some psychic mojo right now.”

To your side, El shakes her head, lips parting, eyes going wide.

The others drop their guns, reluctantly, but all glare fiercely at the soldiers.

“We can work this out, boys,” Hopper says.

“вернись в свою клетку, крыса,” one of the soldiers snaps, raising his gun. Hopper raises his hands, crinkling his nose and furrowing his brows, expression twisting.

“ _Da_ …not gonna happen,” he says. He hesitates one second and lunges, lunging for Mike’s tranquilizer gun and lifting it, firing four shots at four soldiers before they react and fire back.

The shot meant for Hopper doesn’t hit him, a stupid, reckless, idiotically brave Steve Harrington shoving Hopper out of the way and catching the bullet in the side.

Time slows down after that. Bullets are fired from tranquilizer guns and lethal ones, and someone helps you drag Steve out of the line of fire, and the shots are so loud you think the world is breaking apart, and there is so much _red_ staining the dirt around Steve, so much _red_ you might drown in it.

“El,” you say, realizing who kneels beside you, “I need you to rip off a piece of your shirt and press it against the wound. Hard as you can. We need to slow down the bleeding.”

El nods, all business, and gets to work. She pressed a wad of cloth to Steve’s belly and he hisses in pain, arching his back and twisting before suddenly relaxing.

“Steve,” you say, “Steve, stay with me.”

He looks up at you groggily, a lazy smile tugging on his lips; it’s a smile you haven’t seen in a long time, one that rips your heart straight in half.

“ _Always_ ,” Steve whispers says. His eyes flutter, and you smack him lightly on the cheek. He frowns, but opens his eyes, though he’s clearly struggling to keep them that way.

“Keep the pressure, El,” you instruct.

“Hey. Hey, I need you to look at me. Okay? Keep those eyes open for me,” you say, smiling at Steve like nothing is wrong, like he isn’t dying in your arms, like the world isn’t going up in bullets around you.

“Do you remember the first night we met?” You ask. “We spent two hours in the Byers bathroom with that shitty first aid kit while I fixed up your face. Back then, you were just some dick that I went to school with.” You cup his face in your hands, trying desperately to hold his attention, to keep him awake. “I don’t even know when it happened. One day, I looked at you, and you weren’t that person anymore. I looked at you, and I realized I didn’t ever want to look at anything else.”

His lips curl up in a smile, mouth stained red.

“I know I don’t have any right to say this to you, that I’m the one that broke things, but I can’t-I can’t keep lying. I need you to know the truth. ”

“The truth?” He murmurs.

“The truth,” you say, “is that I loved you for a long, long time, and I was a coward for not telling you the moment I realize it. I think I’ve been running this whole time, since the day we met. But I’m done running.” You duck your head, leaning in closer. “Steve Harrington, I promise you, if you don’t die on me, I’ll never leave you again. I’ll never _run_ again. But I need you to stay awake for me, okay?”

“F’it’s for you…” He mumbles, a tiny smile tugging up on his lips. His eyes flutter again, but he reaches up, a hand on your cheek, like he’s keeping himself awake with the touch of a finger.

He tries to stay awake; he really tries. You watch him try, watch him fight, but eventually, after only a few minutes, his eyes fall shut. He’s still breathing, still has a pulse, but with each minute that passes, he’s losing his hold. He’s dying, and you can’t do anything about it. 

He needs to get out of here, and he needs to do it now.

You turn to El, tears raking rivers down your cheeks.

“El, I need you,” you plead. “I know you think you lost your power. I know you’ve lost everything else. But I don’t believe it, and I don’t think you do, either, deep down.” You take her hand in yours, both your fingers stained in Steve’s blood. “I need you to find it. It’s in there. I need you to blow this fucking place down, because if you don’t, we’re all going to die here. Me, you, Hopper, Mike, Steve, _everyone_.”

El’s features twist, disbelief warring with wanting.

“The Upside Down has taken from you every day of your life,” you say. “It’s time for you to take it back.”

A fire dances to life in her eyes, her brows pulling together, and she stands slowly, replacing her hand with yours on Steve’s abdomen. You press the cloth into the wound, silently apologizing, though he’s not awake to feel it.

Time slows to a stop. Everyone you love is suddenly there, all dragged back toward you and El and dropped ungracefully on the dirt like they were connected to invisible strings.

El draws a metaphorical line in the sand. Beyond the line, the world breaks apart. The ground shakes and splits and the building comes apart, pieces swirling in some kind of otherworldly tornado, wreaking havoc on the entire place. The gunshots stop and the only noise is the destruction, and above all that, an ear-splitting scream as El rips the base apart.

The tornado dies and silence falls over the debris, El sagging the moment it stops. Hopper catches her, relief flashing in his expression when he checks for a pulse and finds it.

The others survey the wreckage with wide eyes, no one moving, as if afraid any step might be on a landmine.

In your arms, Steve’s breathing gets slower and slower.

“Tell Joyce to bring the car as close as she can,” Nancy says, directing Lucas and Max toward the trees where Joyce waits, and they take off without a word. Jonathan, Robin, and Reagan kneel around you, helping you lift Steve up, careful of the bleeding hole in his belly.

You help load him into the car and climb into the back with him, his head in your lap, fingers working the knots out of his hair as Joyce drives as quickly as she can back to the motel, Hopper sitting in the front with the medical kit Joyce brought - you desperately hoped she could use it to save his life - on his lap.

A year ago, you left Hawkins for this very reason. You couldn’t breathe around the death anymore. And now, the blood staining your hands is Steve’s. Steve, who only ended up on this ragtag team because he knew it was the right thing to do, because he wanted to help, because he’s _good_.

Steve Harrington deserves better than this, and you don’t know what you’ll do if he doesn’t get it; if his road ends here, in a remote part of Russia, for no reason other than his valiancy.


	8. part 8

**1985**

When you left Hawkins, Indiana, you didn’t have a going away party, didn’t have painful and tear-streaked goodbyes with all your friends, didn’t wave out a back window and watch the people you love grow smaller as you pulled farther away.

When you left, you said goodbye to Robin and Nancy, and that was it; that was the end of the book, the finale of the story, the closing of the chapter.

Steve Harrington is under the assumption that you left without saying goodbye, and while this is partly true, it’s not the whole of it.

The whole truth is that you tried to say goodbye. You inched up to the finish line, and you toed it, but rather than crossing it, rather than finishing the race and walking past it, you turned in the other direction.

You were discharged the evening of your 11th day in the hospital. You filled out the paperwork, gathered your things, and stepped out of the hospital room that had been your lifeline since you woke up in it, half dead and rawly stitched.

The halls were quiet, visiting hours winding to a close and patients settling into beds behind closed doors. The bright lights dimmed ever so slightly, washing the wards in pale light that made everyone’s skin look plastic and tight.

The waiting room sat at the end of the hall to the right, a small room with windows all around and crowded with chairs that were empty this time of night.

Though, not completely empty.

Curled up across two seats, his hoodie pillowed beneath his head, was Steve, fast asleep and looking uncomfortable. You paused, feet carrying you to the waiting room, and you stopped outside it, looking through the glass.

He looked so peaceful in sleep, so young. Like the boy he used to be.

For eleven days, you’d told the nurses and your friends and family not to let him in to see you. For eleven days, you’d been tossing the idea of running around in your head, and not once did you bring it up with Steve.

You could have so easily gone into the room and shook him awake, could have made some grand confession and headed out the door, could have even left some silly little note explaining yourself. It would have been so simple to do the right thing; to wait another minute before bolting in the other direction.

You did none of those things. Instead, you placed a hand against the glass, mind rifling through three years of memories - of blood and Steve Harrington, always intertwined - and sent up a silent prayer that he’d be okay.

He’d be safe, and he’d forgive you, and everything would be okay.

The message would never reach him, but you sent it anyway, sent it with a confession and a silent hope that his story carried far past this point.

I love you, and I’m sorry. Be good, Steve Harrington.

Then you stepped away from the window and turned around. When you started running, you didn’t stop.

**1986**

Steve wakes in the motel, tucked tightly beneath blankets in the room Joyce spent last night in. He shifts, the movement triggering a twisting pain in his gut, and he drops back into the pillows, huffing from the exertion.

“Stop moving, will you,” a familiar voice says to his right, Robin leaning forward in a chair she’s dragged beside the bed. “You’ll rip your stitches.”

“Where am I?” He asks, voice rough. He clears his throat, scanning the room, something pricking at the back of his mind, like there’s something he’s forgotten or something he can’t see.

“The motel,” Robin explains. “Joyce was going to stitch you up herself, but it turns out the owner’s husband is a vet.”

Steve frowns, pushing to a sitting position and ignoring the protesting pain in his gut.

“Don’t tell me an animal doctor stitched me up.”

Robin grins.

“Fine,” she says. “I won’t tell you. Besides, a doctor is a doctor.”

“An animal doctor.”

“You’re alive, aren’t you?” Robin asks, voice sharper than she seems to intend, and she averts her gaze. “When I turned back, and I saw you on the ground…all that blood…”

“What happened? How did we make it out?” Steve frowns. “Hopper. He-”

“It was El, actually. She went all Carrie on the place. All that’s left is a field.”

“Jesus,” Steve says. “But I thought…”

Robin shrugs, sitting back in her chair and folding her arms.

“I don’t know how the hell they did it, but Y/N figured out that El still had her power, she just had to find it. And she did. And she burned the place down. Without her, we wouldn’t all be here. But we are. Hopper’s weak, but he’s resting. You’re the only one who came out with a bullet wound.”

Steve perks up at your name, a blurry image of you kneeling above him flickering in his mind. He remembers words, too, but he can’t grab onto them, can’t lift them off the tip of his tongue.

As quickly as the relief washes through him at your survival, cold dread douses whatever reprieve he found.

You’re not here; you left. You left him, again. Are you even still in Russia, or did you take the first flight out, start the race back to your utopia in California?

Before he can ask the question the door whines open, and you step into the room, carrying a mug of coffee.

“Adrik makes straight poison, but this should keep you up for-” You slam to a halt, catching his gaze and holding it, indecipherable emotions flickering in your expression.

Robin pushes to her feet and rounds the bed to join you, taking the coffee and moving to the door, turning in the doorway. She looks between you, and flashes Steve a supportive smile.

“I’m gonna check on Reagan. She’s had at least six cups of coffee in the last two hours, and I’m pretty sure she’s bouncing off the balls in the other room.”

“Her and all the kids,” you say. She laughs, and ducks into the hallway, leaving you and Steve alone in the room.

For a long moment, you stand still in the middle of the room, as if unsure what to do or where to go. Steve is grateful for the various paintings on the wall, all horrendous and badly done, but something to look at other than you.

As if a flip has been switched, you move, crossing the room and dropping onto the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping beneath your weight. Steve’s stomach twists, and it only irritates the wound in his belly.

“How are you feeling?” You ask.

“Can’t complain,” he says. “How are you?”

You snort, shaking your head.

“You almost die, and you’re asking how _I_ am?”

“ _Almost_ being the key word.”

You roll your eyes, hesitating a moment before meeting his gaze, cheeks burning.

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” you say. “So, so glad.”

“I think you were right,” he says, a sad smile on his lips. “I didn’t get it, before. Why you wanted to leave. But I do now. I see the appeal in the palm trees and overpriced bullshit.”

You smile and shake your head, drawing a leg up onto the bed and shifting more to face him, your knee pressed to his thigh.

“No. I was a coward. And running doesn’t work, anyway. You either end up right back where you came from, or the thing you were running from catches up to you.”

“I’d rather it catch me on a beach than at the video store,” Steve says. You can’t help but laugh, a hand falling to his leg, the sudden touch rendering you both silent.

“Look, I-”

“Did you mean it?”

You both speak at once, but Steve’s word slice to your core, and you frown, brows furrowing.

“Mean…”

Steve licks his lips, something akin to nerves flashing for a brief moment in his eyes.

“In the base, before El blew everything up…you said you were done running. Did you mean it?”

One side of your mouth twitches, and you nod.

“I was angry at you for a long time because you never…made a move, or said anything. But I did the exact same thing. I was just as at fault as you.”

“I should have said something,” Steve says. “I should have told you how I felt.” He sits back, leaning his head back against the wall. “If I had, maybe things would be different.”

“Maybe they’d be worse,” you say. He snorts, gaze flicking to yours, a lopsided smile tugging on his lips.

“I know it doesn’t matter now, but if you’d asked me to come with you a year ago…I would have. I’d follow you anywhere.”

“Clearly,” you say, jerking a chin at your surroundings. Steve smiles, warmth filling his chest. He didn’t realize just how fiercely he’s missed you until now, until you’re looking at him the way you used to, like he’s something special, like he isn’t just some washout jock. 

Your lips twitch and you push off the bed, folding your arms and turning halfway toward the window across the room, suddenly interested in the patterned mustard curtains.

If all Steve Harrington had was the memory of the way you looked at him, the way you loved him, he could fight a million monsters and win each time.

He’s always known he has a tendency for dumb mistakes, but you are without a doubt his biggest fuck-up - what he did to you, or, he supposes, _didn’t_ do - and it shouldn’t have taken two near death experiences to figure that out. He was ignorant, and he was too busy pretending at something he doesn’t even remember anymore, and he let your slip through his fingers without realizing you were ever in his hand.

He will not do the same thing again.

It takes a lot of effort to shift his legs over the edge of the bed and sit, but the noise from his motion is enough to pull your attention back to him, if only for a moment. He needs to pull it back.

“When Robin told me you were gone, it felt like someone reached into my chest and ripped my heart out, literally,” he says, cheeks flushing as he speaks. “I’ve never felt like that before. Ever. Not even when Nancy…” He shakes his head, continuing. “You were right, back at the Byers’. I loved you, and I think I have for years, and I don’t know if I was just being an idiot, or if I was scared, but I pretended I didn’t.”

You’ve turned to face him again, but you don’t move closer, don’t lower the barrier you’ve created with your crossed arms.

“I’m still scared,” he says, mouth twitching upwards. “Fucking terrified. But I’m more scared that you’ll walk away again.” He drops his gaze for a beat before meeting your eyes again. “I should have done this a year ago, but I’m asking you to _stay_. I _want_ you to stay.”

Your arms fall to your sides, expression softening.

“I promised, didn’t I? No more running.” You cross slowly to his bed, stopping at his knees, and you reach out and gently tug up the shirt covering the bandage strapped around his torso. A crease forms beneath your brow, and Steve reaches out, fingers brushing the fabric hiding the scars peppering your skin.

“We match,” he says.

“We could have just gotten matching tee shirts,” you say, one side of your mouth curling up. “Or bracelets, or something.”

“Go big or go home,” Steve says.

“Going home was an option? I missed that memo.”

Steve snorts and snakes a hand out, looping a finger through a belt loop in your jeans and tugging you closer. You suck in a breath, hands coming to his shoulders, at eye level.

“ _Stay_ ,” he says. You smile, leaning in and tipping your forehead against his, eyes falling shut.

“If it’s for you,” you murmur. Steve’s stomach flips, and he tilts his chin up, mouth meeting yours.

It is by no means a gentle kiss, not graceful or careful, all hunger and lost time and skimming hands. Your heart pounds beneath Steve’s fingertips. Something yawns open inside him, something twisting in his belly, like a little voice that says _you finally made it_.

He pulls away, head dipped against yours, and your hands slide up his neck and into his hair. He leans in against, pressing his lips to yours against, softer, less like wildfire and more like a campfire. When he pulls back, he can’t resists leaning in once more, brushing the most careful of kisses across your lips before pulling back.

When he opens his eyes, the blacks of your eyes are blown and your lips are curled up in a smile.

“I have another idea,” you say. Your smile widens. “Come with me.”


	9. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that’s a wrap! thanks so much for the love and support on this au, it means the world! thanks for reading! find me and this fic on tumblr @ harringtown :)

“Steve Harrington!”

The frustrated voice echoes down the halls of the apartment, followed by stomps and the slow patter of footsteps behind them. The door to your bedroom pops open and Reagan marches in, planting her hands on her hips and fixing Steve with a cold stare.

Steve, laying sideways across your bed with his head in your lap as you read, frowns, sitting up and shoving the half eaten bag of chips beneath the covers. He leans back down, using your thigh to prop his arm on, and giving Reagan an innocent smile.

“Don’t think that just because you’re dating my best friend I won’t murder you for eating my food,” Reagan warns. Robin, close on Reagan’s heels, joins her girlfriend in the doorway, wrapping her arms around her from behind and rest her chin on Reagan’s shoulder.

“Technically,” Steve points out, “you’re dating my best friend, too.”

“Did I ask for your technicalities, Harrington?”

“You agreed to his bullshit when you let them move in,” you remind her, laughing.

“I was _tricked_ ,” she says. Robin grins.

“I swear, I didn’t touch your chips,” Steve says. You roll your eyes, shoving him off your leg. He grumbles, pushing himself up and moving to sit against you.

“Try again,” Reagan says. A sheepish grin tugs on Steve’s lips.

“I swear, I will pay you back for the chips.”

“Last try.”

Steve rolls his eyes and tugs the near-empty bag out from behind him, shaking it. Reagan’s expression turns murderous, which only amuses Robin, who ducks around her girlfriend to cross the room and take a handful of chips from the bag.

“I’ll buy you another?” Steve asks, cocking a brow. Reagan smiles, satisfied.

“Why, thank you, Steve, you’re so nice for buying me two bags of chips to replace the one’s you so disrespectfully stole.”

Steve climbs off the bed, wrapping up the empty bag and chucking it into the bin by the desk, waggling his brows at Reagan as he slips past her and into the doorway.

“I’m guessing Robin didn’t tell you about the ice cream we ate last night?”

Reagan turns to Robin, eyes narrowing.

“Dude!” Robin exclaims. “Not cool.”

Steve winks at her, heading down the hall, calling, “Or the taquitos!” Behind him as he runs for the kitchen, presumably to take stock of the damage a drunk Robin and Steve wreaked last night after a bottle of wine. Reagan ducks after him, cursing his name, but both their laughter wafts down the hallway quickly after.

Robin flops across your bed, rolling to face you, lips curling up in a smile.

“I heard from Nancy,” she says. “Everyone’s good. Hopper and Joyce are finally getting a place together. Kids aren’t raising too much hell.”

“Good,” you say. “They deserve to be happy. God knows they’ve earned it.”

“So have we.”

You smile, looking around you and Steve’s bedroom and the hallway beyond it, leading to Robin and Reagan’s room and your tiny kitchen and even tinier living room. It’s tight, but at nights, the city wakes up and the smell of the ocean sticks to every brick and tree.

There are no monsters, here, not any real ones. There are skeletons in closets, rattling behind you, and one day, each one of you will have to open the door and shake their hands. On that day, you hope to find them dissolved to dust, incapable of causing any more harm.

“Are you happy?” Robin asks.

You think of Robin and Reagan, giggling together as they cook or press kisses to each other’s cheeks and noses, of their infectious joy. You think of the kids, heading into a world with no monsters. You think of Joyce and Hopper, finding peace after so much chaos.

You think of Steve, and the battles you fought to get here.

“I am,” you say. “I think I really am.”

* * *

“Wake up.” The soft voice pulls you out of sleep, and you blink awake to find Steve sitting up above you, a tiny smile on his face.

“What time is it?” You ask groggily, pushing up and wiping your eyes.

“1:30,” Steve says. “Come on. Up and at em.”

“Steve, what on god’s green earth-”

“Oh, hush up, and come with me,” he says. You frown, but climb out of bed, slipping your feet into slippers and padding out into the hallway after Steve, following him through the living room to the balcony door. He pushes it open, stepping out into the dark, and you follow, nudging the door shut behind you.

In the night sky above you, stars dance across the sky, seemingly falling into the abyss.

Steve wraps his arms around you from behind, lips grazing your ear when he whispers, “Meteor shower.”

You lean back against him, his shirt soft and his hold steady, breathing in the smell of the ocean and the sharp, clean scent of Steve’s aftershave.

“It’s incredible,” you whisper.

“Pretty sure that means we get, like, a thousand wishes,” he says. You laugh, twisting in his arms to face him, winding your arms around his neck.

“Yeah? And what’s your first wish?”

He smiles, ducking his head to press a careful kiss to your lips.

“Already got it,” he says. You smile and roll your eyes.

“Okay, Romeo. We get it. You’re romantic.”

“Glad you noticed,” Steve says. His expression turns serious. “I’m serious, though. Last year…when you were gone…this was what I wished for. To have more time with you. To fix things.”

“We’ve got time, now,” you say. Steve smiles, ducking his chin and pressing his face into your neck, arms tightening around you. You bury your face in his chest and grip the fabric of his shirt tightly, etching the lines of this moment into your memory, begging it to stay forever.

“Everyone does,” Steve says. He pulls away, lips curled up in a smile. “All of us have all the time in the world, because of you.”

“Not _all_ me.”

“ _Mostly_ you.”

You roll your eyes, turning around in Steve’s arms to look up at the stars, again. The shower is over, but there are still a million worlds up there, a million miles away.

“I love you, you know,” Steve murmurs. “And not just because you saved my ass.”

“But partly?”

“Oh, of course. Just a bit.”

You laugh, and Steve’s chest shakes against your back as he laughs, too.

“I love you, too.”

“I know,” Steve says. You snort, and tip your head back against his chest, letting out a breath.

You’ve made a lot of mistakes, and running away was the biggest of them. Sometimes, we don’t get to fix things. Sometimes, we just have to move forward and try to forget.

You got lucky. You got a second chance. And you’ll be damned if you waste it.


End file.
